Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 39

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[edit] Featured article process reformation / Recall of the Featured Article Director

The featured article process is broken.

And in particular, the selection process for the featured article of the day is even more broken.

It seems that a poll taken on August 12, 2004, on an obscure talk page, with 14 voters decided to appoint Raul654 as "Featured Article Director," over the concerns of others that this role was insufficiently defined. In fact to this day this position is not even mentioned at Wikipedia:Featured article or Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, much less its roles, duties, or extent! Editors can be excused for being baffled as to why articles such as today's ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion end up being featured on the front page of Wikipedia. In fact, this article was promoted after only three editors voted on promoting it; and the current process heavily biases participation in the discussion of promotion of obscure articles like this to only editors of the article in question.

In any event, it was promoted on the strength of these three editor's recommendation. It is a long step from being a Bold textfeatured article to being featured on the front page of Wikipedia; like promotion itself, this is something that is apparently entirely up to Raul654 or those he delegates. He, on the strength of a poll obscurely conducted and voted for by 14 editors three and a half years ago, decides day in and day out which articles go on the front page of Wikipedia, which is a huge part of Wikipedia's public image. When Wikipedia presents itself to the world featuring this kind of titillating video game obscurata, it is important to realize that this is not a democratic outcome, but the personal whim of this individual.

I contend that our featured article process is broken, that the position of Featured Article Director was not legitimately defined or democratically elected or appointed in the first place, it is hidden from public oversight, and that in any event after three and a half years of Wikipedia history, Raul654's mandate is long since over. It is time for him to step down and for this position to be redefined and filled by a new volunteer.

Your comments please! NTK (talk) 04:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. That said, it is reasonable is to ask for a much better process. But you seem to treat FA director as a position of privilege and power -- it is not. Being FA director is quite unlike being an arbcom member. As far as it goes, the general idea is to go through the list of existing main page nominations (generally in chronological order) and create the appropriate subpages. The duties of Director basically include ensuring that featured articles are not repeatedly front-paged unnecessarily and to try to give every FA a chance on being on the main page, as well as preventing certain FAs from reaching the front page, because it would be inappropriate (e.g. Wikipedia, which was a featured article). It also includes things like preventing two game articles from being shown on the main page one after another, or even two country articles. Maybe the process needs to be changed, but do realise that Wikipedia is a community of editors. Though it tries to serve humanity as much as possible and is associated with the democratisation of information, it is not itself a democracy. It is an encyclopedia. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 05:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
If we are determining consensus by discussion there should be a discussion. Other than as noted above, there has been no discussion much less consensus. And it is not fair to say that the position of FA director is a powerless drudge position. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests makes it clear that "the final decision rests with the Featured Article Director (Raul654)," although the basis for his "authority" is unexplained there. NTK (talk) 06:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, there was much discussion few months back which reconfirmed consensus that Raul is doing a good job, see here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Long story short, I think everybody, Raul as well, is entitled to a mistake. He is doing a good job 99% of the time, and in any case, I am sure any request to remove him would be quickly WP:SNOWballed with objections (including my own). But putting ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion into the main page featured queue is a major SNAFU, good maybe for April 1. As I have noted here many editors have criticized this; I sincerly hope that we will switch main page article ASAP and Raul and Sandy will pay more attention so that half-notable fringe FAs will not slip into the main page (where so many more notable subjects are awaiting their main page exposure).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Why should it be, and why should you assume that everyone would object to Raul not being the ultimate authority on featured articles just because he's been doing it for a long time? I agree that most featured articles have been high quality. However this is not the first time that such an article has been plastered on the front page of Wikipedia, although definitely the most egregious in recent memory. The more basic point is, why should Raul be doing this indefinitely in the same opaque, review-free manner just because it's been "customary practice" so far? We need a better way that is open, clear to editors, and fair. And importantly one that is grounded in an actual consensus or mandate of editors rather than some straw poll held well over three years ago that didn't clearly establish the ground rules even at that time. Wikipedia is a completely different place now. This process must be reviewed. NTK (talk) 06:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Simply, Raul does as good job as any committee would (and faster). In any case, I belive we should separate the issue of 'get this junk out of main page' (which should get much support) from 'lets recall FAD' (which I don't think would). So for the good of Wikipedia, I highly suggest unbundling those two topics ASAP.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Who said anything about replacing him with a committee? I am only asking that the process be made open, the role and term of the position be made clear and mentioned in the appropriate locations, and that the position be filled through an open participation process. I don't think that Raul can legitimately claim to hold the position on this basis now, if he ever could. There are certainly hundreds of other Wikipedians who would be happy and competent to fulfill this role. And I think that Today's Featured Article is so prominent and so central to Wikipedia's public image that this should not be brushed aside. NTK (talk) 06:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with the characterization of this as a mistake, and agree with Raul's decision to put this on the front page. I also don't think it's Raul's responsibility to decide if an article is "FA enough" for the front page, any FA article should inevitably make it into the front page. Masterhomer 06:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
This is clearly a nonsense position, there is obviously more than one net article promoted to FA status per day and it is necessarily impossible for every featured article to be posted to the front page. NTK (talk) 06:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I have been contributing to Wikipedia for a long time and I can tell you this was not always the case, and it may not always be the case. Nevertheless, I do not think Raul's position implies any sort of requirement for judgment, I believe that any article attending FA status should be threated equally with regards to the front page. The time for judgment is the FA nomination process, and that is open to anybody. So in summary I think complaining about Raul is counterproductive and if you really want to effect change you should probably be more active in the FA nomination process. Masterhomer 06:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
If that were the case we could easily solve this issue by replacing Raul with a script that randomly features a FA that hasn't been on the front page yet and not waste his time anymore. This won't be done because your premise that all featured articles are equal and equally worthy of the front page is false. This is a "featured article" that never should have made this trek. It is a total repudiation of Wikipedia as a serious reference work. NTK (talk) 06:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Let gets this straight, this whole thing is very unproductive. I'm pretty sure we all know you will get nowhere with this, and Wikipedia already has a fairly formal process for how featured articles are nominated. You would better spend your energy contributing more to this process then complaining against Raul for doing his job. With a couple of sentences during the nomination process, you alone could have had the power to prevent this article from being FA in the first place. Masterhomer 07:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, come on. You are saying because I have not monitored the featured article process on a daily basis to prevent this kind of thing from happening, I have no right to complain? No, the "Featured Article Director," if we have such a position, should be someone with a mandate from the Wikipedia community as a whole, with a position that is clear to the community as a whole, and who has this ongoing responsibility. It is clear that a large proportion of Wikipedians think that this featured article was a huge mistake. At a minimum it is clear that such extremely divisive and controversial articles--divisive and controversial not for their content but for their quality and importance--should not be featured on the front page as representative of Wikipedia as a whole. If we had an open position where multiple candidates could run on different philosophies of how featured articles should be selected, and selected for the front page, I think that there would be a consensus for this at least. But there never was such a process; there was only a de facto coronation on a talk page three and a half years ago of the current, self-appointed "director." There were objections at that time not only that the role was not defined well enough (as it still is not) and that there never were any other candidates considered (which there still have not been) but that the entire "ratification" poll was conducted on a talk page that was under the radar and only viewed by a tiny segment of even the 2004 Wikipedia community. It was never properly reviewed. You don't seem to understand that what I am objecting to is the process itself. NTK (talk) 07:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, there's a large number of threads (many in the history of this very page, even) in which Raul's status is complained and argued about, but obviously none of those complaints have led to his removal. Either the complaints are falling on deaf ears, or he has more support and approval than you seem to think. I've also noticed a trend, in the course of these threads: it's easy to drum up opposition to Raul, but historically difficult to develop widespread support for any alternative system/method/user. A viable alternative seems to be a precursor to replacement. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:49, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
A viable alternative is very simple, not rocket science. Here's one off the top of my head: Have a page for candidates to list themselves as Raul-replacements (himself included if he wishes) and have a poll on who to replace him. If nobody else wants the job I'll take it. It's not a duty I would seek out but I certainly wouldn't put such a controversial, unworthy article on the front page. But I am sure there are others who have been active with the FA process who are also more fair-minded and would be willing to run. NTK (talk) 08:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
"and have a poll on who to replace him".... but wikipedia is not a democracy. You mean a consensus based on arguments, where weight of arguments may sway the decision to the least voted option --Enric Naval (talk) 17:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I personally don't see anything procedurally wrong with the way that this article made it to the front page. An argument could be made for its delisting, but the fact that only three editors participated in the FA discussion is not in and of itself improper. I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more transparency in the appointment of the director, but to suggest that the article was placed on the front page by a small cabal of three editors and Raul654 is a bit of a stretch -- RoninBK T C 07:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
It is not the point that it was done by 3 editors colluding or that Rual got his position over 13 people colluding, I don't think that anyone was trying to make that point. The point is that the Wikipedia community does not have any say what so ever anymore, and that the current system means almost anything can get on the front page even if only a couple of editors have pushed it through. There needs to be a consensus system where pages are voted for front page from FA status, and Wikipedia should prevent itself from even allowing pages in areas that voters are biased towards (computers and video games). Look at all the featured articles, how did the ESRB change of a games rating beat out all that history, science and literature. While the article might well be consensus in that most wikipedia editors like computers/video games, it is an embarrassment for an Encyclopedia to put this article ahead of thousands of much more worthy articles. POTD articles need a new rating system, they need to reated on historical significant/educational value and other worthy traits, not just on being 'FA'.--58.111.132.29 (talk) 07:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is as much as an encyclopedia on video games as it is on nuclear physics. We do not discriminate on fields of endeavor here. As an encyclopedia completely written by it's visitors, Wikipedia depends on people like you to contribute to articles. Complaining never is productive, in fact it is usually counterproductive. Masterhomer 07:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
'Wikipedia is as much as an encyclopedia on video games as it is on nuclear physics.' is a statement I agree with to the bottom of my heart. Any topic, no matter how esoteric, or maligned, or low interest, should be able to make front page. I am confused that a video game article is 'an embarrassment', why is this so? Because other articles are more worthy? Because of the lack of notability of said article? I do not understand why these are issues.Sigma83 (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
The comment by 58.111.132.29 has swayed me over to that argument. He/She isn't "complaining" but proposing an outline for a new system, and giving reasons why that system is needed. Hear hear, I say--jwandersTalk 07:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I fundamentally cannot agree that "Wikipedia should prevent itself from even allowing pages in areas that voters are biased towards" Who are you to say that your bias against a computer/video game article outweighs the bias of anyone else? That rationale violates the spirit of our Neutral Point of View policy. -- RoninBK T C 08:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I would in fact go further than what I said above, and upon further examination and reflection say that Raul654 is responsible for the stagnation of the entire Featured Article process and consequently in part for the quality management and assessment of Wikipedia as a whole. His assumption of an unelected, uncontested, unmandated, and termless position of authority over the Featured Article and Today's Featured Article process, his total refusal until last November to delegate any of the process, and only delegating part of the Featured Article promotion job to a single appointed, and unreviewed, deputy, has directly led to a massive backlog in featured article candidates and the disrepute and disrepair of featured articles in general. We must demand better. NTK (talk) 08:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, it's one thing to say that Raul654 once promoted an allegedly flawed article to the main page, it's another thing entirely to accuse him of rampant neglect of duties and abuse of power. Exceptional claims require exceptional proof, and we're going to need more than this single incident to prove that. -- RoninBK T C 09:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I find ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion an excellent and totally appropriate front page choice. The front page FA selection process should sample all aspects of Wikipedia, not just those areas covered in traditional encyclopedias. Video games are a major industry and an important social phenomenon that arguably deserves more public attention. The incident described in the front page article was a milestone in the industry's effort to self-regulate. This featured article demonstrates that our extensive coverage of video games is more than just a fan trivia collection. Raul654 should be commended for picking this article instead of the many safer choices no doubt available.--agr (talk) 10:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

As someone with absolutely no interest in videogames per se, I didn't expect much from this article. Instead I found it to be an intriguing and well-written discussion of how technology, sociology, and regulation intersect. Good choice for FA. Raymond Arritt (talk) 11:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Some very wonky arguments in here - forget Raul - should the position exist? if the position exists, where are the powers of the position outlined? what is the process of recall/alteration to the position outlined? I for a long time thought this position needs reforming because I feel the position is inherently at odd with the spirit of the project. So let's stick to talking position and less about person --Fredrick day (talk) 11:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I personally have to agree with NTK so far as I do not believe the article to be FA quality (and therefore not main-page quality) however that is the fault of the FAC process in this case, before Raul even go to the main page selection. Perhaps Raul might have seen that it wasn't FA, but then he might have believed it was, and presumably some people did because it underwent an FAC at some point, and whose to say my opinion on the quality of the article is more informed than theirs? I am very aware that we may be trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. SGGH speak! 11:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Following on from Frederick day's post, there are two issues here really. One is the job of promoting FAs, one which works perfectly well under the current system and which was effectively ratified in the delegation discussion recently. The other is designating the TFA which is an incredibly difficult job. There are so many competing interests for who wants the TFA on a given date. The alternative to having one person designating the TFA is a committee which would just descend into anarchy and squabbling. I think the system works well as it is and shouldn't be changed. I leave you with a quote from Churchill Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. It seems perfectly applicable here. The current system is the best we have and it works perfectly adequately. Woody (talk) 12:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there any reason why the director post could not becomes a "duty" position and rotates between two or three trusted editors who do a month or so at a time (or however we want to work it)? That way we build redundancy into the post and also get a mixture of Weltanschauung at the apex of the current process. --Fredrick day (talk) 12:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
But this is not democratic at all! Editors were never given an alternative to "let Raul pick it," everything now is flowing from a hasty straw poll on the talk page in 2004. It would be very easy to come up with consensus guidelines which prevent these kinds of extremely alienating pages from being on the front of Wikipedia. 66.234.51.139 (talk) 12:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
You say it's "not democratic at all" and you follow it with "come up with consensus guidelines which prevent these kinds of extremely alienating pages from being on the front". So you want the person who does the job to be democratically appointed to the position but that same democracy won't apply to the articles that person can choose from. - X201 (talk) 13:12, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not particularly useful to discuss the individual editor currently doing the posts because they just lends to shrill cries of "he does a great job!", "he's biased and should be removed". What is your suggestion to what should do with the position? should it be removed? if the position is removed, what replaces it? --Fredrick day (talk) 13:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a short note to say that as someone who spends most of my Wikipedia time involved in FAs, I have no problem with Raul654 or with the current process. I don't see a need to change Raul654's role or authority, or the TFA selection method, or the FA process. It all seems to be working reasonably well to me. Mike Christie (talk) 18:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

That's what I said but it in a less verbose manner. I always try and get Churchill in there somewhere! ;) Woody (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. I think this complaint by NTK is way too extreme. Recall of the Featured Article Director? For a FA you happened not to like? Even if some TFA is a bizarre choice, that doesn't mean the process of nominating articles for TFA is entirely wrong, or the policy must be revised. And as a matter of fact, I strongly disagree with NTK's opinion that this article was a mistake. I like the nature of TFA: regularly, I see a Featured Article that I would never have come across surfing Wikipedia, but which interests me nonetheless. Therefore, the fact that some people don't care about the re-rating of a video game (not a common event, mind you!) doesn't mean the choice was wrong. And to even propose the policy is broken... now that seems ridiculous to me! Andreas Willow (talk) 21:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this was a good choice for a main page article. It is my opinion that this is not primarily an article about a video game; it is an article about censorship - and is therefore of interest and relevance to everyone. BreathingMeat (talk) 02:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I also disagree that the FA process is broken -- at least in the way NTK believes. If anything, observing the choices that have appeared on the Front page over the last four years, IMHO the choices are more often worthy & substantial topics & less often some obscure niche subjects only -- well, er, yes -- a nerd would know or care about! -- llywrch (talk) 23:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Potential solutions?

It seems to me (from a quick glance) that the root problem is that we have relatively unimportant articles being selected to the front page, regardless of how they get there. I have a few ideas how I think we could solve this:

Assign an "importance" factor
During the FA process, what if each user voting also assigned a numeric value (too keep it simple, from 1-5 or so) to the article? Then we could have a bot randomly pick from our "top-importance" articles for the front page.
I think this should be done as part of the Featured nom process. It helps mitigate the brokenness that gets articles promoted to Featured with ~5 "support" votes. Tempshill (talk) 19:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
User-selected front page article
Instead of having just one person selecting an article, why not have a weekly poll? Any interested editor could add articles to running (within a predetermined submission window) and the top seven articles would then be our front page articles for the week. We could also use this as a filter to prevent multiple articles of the same genre (science, history, literature, geography etc.) appearing on the FP within a given week, to keep it diverse.

My apologies if either of these are already in use (the conversation above doesn't make it seem like it), but I'm fairly unfamiliar with the FP process. Oberiko (talk) 14:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Option 1 will create a cluster**** of various editors waging war against each other of how one article is important and the other is not. It might be easy to assign "important" to articles like electricity, but then what about articles that we have never heard in our lives but various other Wikipedia editors did so and believe they are indeed important?
It wouldn't be an agreement, but an individual vote. I.e. "Support 4". Yes, you would have die-hards who vote for something important to them as "5", but the overall would likely be fairly accurate.
There should definitely be an importance factor in deciding which article should be the featured article, which whoever chooses should have to adhere to. I'm sure some criteria could be drawn up. An article such today's should never be the featured article again. It's an embarrasment. Petepetepetepete (talk) 15:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Option 2 won't create any diversity, but a trend or bias since the same people would be voting on which articles get featured in the front page. It would be like having a court of conservative/liberal judges voting on the side of the issue that best fits their ideology. --BirdKr (talk) 14:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it would. Each article submitted could be assigned a pre-determined genre. I.e. "Article X: science" or "Article Z: other". Should two articles of the same genre be in the top-seven, we would then just take the higher of them. I'm sure we could incorporate rules or procedures of some kind to try and enforce diversity. Oberiko (talk) 15:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
But what's the role of the Director in either of those options? is he/she the administrator or the manager of the system? --Fredrick day (talk) 15:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Can you clarify the difference? In the first option, I don't think we'd need an administrator beyond someone to record the tally. In the second it would definitely help to have someone there to prune results which are to similar to recent FP entries (i.e., two battles from the same war / country).
an administrator would be there to manage the process and carry out the will of group X, a manager would have final say. --Fredrick day (talk) 17:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Both would benefit from having watch-dogs to prevent rallying (going to users talk pages and requesting that the user vote for something in particular) and Voting blocs. Oberiko (talk) 16:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


Neither of these options is actually going to work. "Importance" is a completely subjective opinion. If an article is notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia and it has passed the FA process (meaning it is a quality article), then it should be considered for the main page. There is a page for people to request that certain articles be placed on certain days, and other users are encourage to !vote as to whether that choice will be kept. That gets pretty heated as well. You'll always have some wikiprojects vote-stacking to get their articles on the main page, and other people complaining that some articles aren't "important". There is no way to make everyone happy. Karanacs (talk) 18:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Let me start by depersonalizing my comments: this is not "about" Raul or the job he does, but about process. Suggestions for main-page inclusion in other modules are handled by the community: T:TDYK, WP:OTD, WP:ITN/C. Article candidates can be offered and discussion is open. However, WP:TFA/R restricts the discussion to five candidates in a 30-day window, provided that a specific date is requested. As of now, there is a six-day lead time in the queue, so any discussion is against a ticking clock. In addition, WP:TFA reinforces its nonconsensus process: The articles appearing on the main page are scheduled by...the ratified featured article director.... [The FAD] maintains a very small, unofficial list of featured articles that he [my emphasis] does not intend to appear on the main page. Therefore, a consensus ratification vote of 15 people (including himself) has set an unexpiring term for a nebulously defined role and no clear contingency plan. I feel the role is better suited as a Featured Article Coordinator/s (as administrator has different meaning here), sort of like a DJ at a radio station who follows a computer-generated playlist and occasionally plays a "request".—Twigboy (talk) 15:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
While I can see your point about a computer generated playlist, I think people will be more unhappy here. The recent dispatch showed the trends for FAs, and there are a lot more articles on video games than there are on topic that others consider more important. Raul does a good job of making sure that newly promoted articles on the core topics reach the main page quickly, but there aren't a lot of those. A truly random process would mean we'd see fewer articles on core topics and more on pop culture/video games. Karanacs (talk) 16:37, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I used the radio station playlist analogy (try not to think of a playlist on a personal media player) because it is not exactly random. When a radio station generates its playlist, it considers that the same artist would not repeat in a certain span of time. It also weights certain genre (perhaps newer music over old releases) in its selection. The formula for weighing selections may also be tweaked by the program director from time to time to account for trends. Therefore, if the community expresses the need for more academic, less pop culture TFAs, then that can be programmed, based on FA categories. All that said, the playlist generator does not remove the need for human intervention. Common sense needs to prevail, as no computer can accomplish that, just as a human cannot be a randomizer.—Twigboy (talk) 17:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Isn't that a pretty good description of how it works now? Raul uses community input on the TFA request page to set up the playlist, and uses his judgement to avoid topic repeats and so forth, in the same way you describe. Mike Christie (talk) 17:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
That makes him the gatekeeper rather than a facilitator downstream in the process.—Twigboy (talk) 18:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] proposal 3: rating for being well-written, not for its importance

Featured articles are chosen by the factor of them being well-written, so the ones featured on the main page should be the ones that are best written. Please don't add any alien factor like "importance" to a decision that is based on writing style P.D.: It's not about important articles, but about well-written articles. If you want important articles, then remove the featured article of the day section, since it's not based on importance --Enric Naval (talk) 17:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Part of the Featured article criteria is that an article be well-written. If articles are being promoted that are not well-written it is because there are not enough reviewers actually looking for that. It's very difficult to attract reviewers to WP:FAC, and that means that sometimes articles get promoted that maybe aren't quite ready because the people who reviewed them weren't as in-depth or had differing opinions on whether it was well-written. The solutions to this problem? a) help out in the FAC process or b) nominate articles that don't meet the criteria for featured article review. Karanacs (talk) 18:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Today's article was junk - we need a better balance at FAC. Not every day should be Mozart or Swahili, but stuff like this should be excluded by process. This is not about recalling Raul who does a good job. It is, as noted at the way top of this discussion about tweaking FA standards so that we aspire in FAs to something more. This kind of crap opens us up to mockery & derision. In fact, it is almost a self-writing Onion headline. We can do better than this, surely. Eusebeus (talk) 18:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
The problem is lots of people want to write video game articles and bring them up to FA status, and fewer people want to write articles about "more important" topics and bring them to FA. How can you draw the line on topic without offending a group of people who really are interested in that topic? Karanacs (talk) 18:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Why junk? Was it badly written? If it's a featured article then we should look only at how well written it is --Enric Naval (talk) 18:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
It seems well-written and comprehensive to me and that is the FA threshold on wikipedia. As to the "important" articles, it is a matter of the systematic bias that afflicts Wikipedia. See the dispatches article on it in the Signpost. To all those complaining about a lack of an "important" article on the front page, start writing an article, get it reviewed, get a gold star and get in the queue. Woody (talk) 18:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Here is my little anecdote about featured articles. I am a doctor working daily with cancer and I think Cancer is the best article I've read on Wikipedia. A while ago, I noticed that Cancer was not a featured article, so I listed it as a candidate. SandyGeorgia answered that we needed to reformat the references and fix our style of writing. Seriously. Here we are a bunch of doctors volunteering countless unpaid hours and we are told to put in many more hours moving commas and hyphens just so we get a little bronze star. I essentially sent them to hell. My conclusion from this : criterias for featured articles place too much emphasis on format, not enough on content. Emmanuelm (talk) 19:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I certainly think that used to be the case in places. I would be happy to help you do all the wikipedia formatting stuff if you need it, as would anyone at Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers or WT:FAC#FAC help volunteers. I know you had no way of knowing this at the time. Whilst FACs do concentrate on content, we also have to make sure it meets all of its manual of style obligations. Woody (talk) 19:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow, Woody, thanks for the offer. By the way, I do not own Cancer. If you think the subject is worth the effort (like, who cares about cancer, right?) and are willing to help us, please announce it in the talk page and go at it! We'll be there to make sure you do not write something unscientific. Emmanuelm (talk) 15:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
There are two distinct issues. The granting of the bronze star is one thing, and then the elevation to the main page is another. If you read carefully here, you'll find that it is the latter detail that is the root cause of most of the consternation today, and the general position appears to be that an article being an FA is not automatic, unquestioned, access to the main page. I find great merit with this, and I suspect that everyone else does too, or else there would be no need for any person in the main-page FA selection process as any random number generator would do. mdf (talk) 20:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I would have to disagree on this issue. When Fighting in ice hockey made the main page, there were some complaints about it as well (see the talk page), but what articles like these show is that Wikipedia has articles on an incredibly broad range of topics, and that even the more obscure topics can be covered at the highest levels. Yeah, this specific article is a goofy one to put on the main page, but this fact alone is one of Wikipedia's main selling points, imnsho. Its fair to discuss how the process and Raul's role could be improved upon, but honestly, I think we should leave the "OMG! I hate that article selection" argument at the door. 365 main page FA's a year. They can't, and shouldn't, all be about traditional encyclopedia topics. Resolute 02:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you disagree with, so I'll re-state what I said.
If an article's FA status is the access card to the main page, then this should be written as policy, along with the specification of a random number generator used to pick the daily FA from the set of FA's (I'll leave it to you to imagine the bureaucratic simplifications and overt drama-reduction this would entail as well; also note that this option also includes the potential for a "goofiness factor").
If, however, some set of people is to make a choice as to which member of the set of FA's is to appear on the main page on a given day, then I don't see why this process, and the people associated with it, can't be open to criticism, even extreme criticism, when it/they make a blatantly poor editorial decision.
I read this entire debate as an example of a virtually unanimous consensus for the latter position. So, with that, I find it unremarkable that the opening shots of a critique are going to be something like what happened yesterday. To paraphrase them, "The ESRB vs. Oblivion article was a patently sucky choice for the main page, regardless of whatever merits are intrinsic to the article proper. We need to fix the process to prevent this kind of editorial monstrosity from ever recurring."
Now, I find myself siding heavily with the consensus here in that some humans ought to be in the loop. This because a "main-page featured article", in addition to the usual FA requirements, should also be excessively notable -- the entire point is to direct traffic to the article, is it not? To engage the editor, to encourage edits? An article on a low-grade random media clusterfuck from 2 years ago just doesn't cut it, at least in my feeble opinion (and apparently many others). Especially one where, during its FA approval process, one supporter was "impressed" so much could be found on such a "narrow" topic, and (quite reasonably!) didn't feel it likely any further material could be added. Was there truly no other alternative? mdf (talk) 13:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I think there are two issues with your statement. Part of the point of an article being on the main page is to reward the editors who work very hard to create/improve really well-done articles. It's not just to drive traffic. Even if it were, an encyclopedia is also supposed to help broaden people's minds to information they might not have been exposed to, so that means any well-done article (as WP define in the FA process) should be eligible. The other problem is the issue with "excessively notable". Who is supposed to define that? I'm very interested in reading and writing articles on the history of Texas, but people in Europe (and most likely those in the other 49 US states) probably won't think that is "excessively notable." I'm totally bored by articles on soccer, so does that mean we should never put an article on the World Cup on the main page? Different people are interested in different things, and there are a LOT of people interested in video games who frequent WP. While I don't personally like those articles, that doesn't give me the right to prevent those who do from enjoying them on the main page. Karanacs (talk) 16:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
As I said, if FA status is the one and only key to the main page, then what other choice is there but to shutdown the entire teetering apparatus of TFA selection replace it all with a few lines of code? A simple position, and certainly releases several people from a number of onerous burdens, but one I believe would put the encyclopedia in a state of disrepute on a regular basis.
As for the reward argument: my guess is that people are going for FA status, not the TFA one. But this is my particular bias, having had a few of my images on the main page and observed the resulting shots fired against the linked article. You should canvas them to make sure, but I suspect many would rather not their hard work not be held up before thousands of vandals, or be forced to defend their substantial efforts from brutalization.
Finally, the bit about "excessive notability" isn't difficult to define: there should at least be hundreds of citeable sources. We don't need to cite them all, but they do need to exist. And not web-sources either, nor main-stream news media sources. To suggest a few: books, monthly magazines, academic journals, even, dare I say it, other encyclopedias. Consider yesterday's joke in this context: every last reference there is to a gaming (!) website or the ESRB, and number a grand total of 23. And that is going to be about all you will ever find on that subject. Compare this to an excellent TFA possibility: asteroid belt. That article has 77 references, and I can tell you there are literally tens of thousands of others not cited there. Best of all, there is no incipient shortage of subjects or articles that would easily pass this test. For example, the history of Texas, or even the World Cup. mdf (talk) 20:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I guess I could have worded that a lot better. I wasn't disagreeing with anything you said. I meant to say I disagree with the arguments that the article selection for the main page is an issue. The Oblivion Scroll article is certainly not what one would expect to see on the main page, but that shouldn't disqualify it from consideration. Frankly, I see this entire debate being spawned by an WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument. If editors go through the process of bringing a relatively obscure topic up to featured status, I see no reason at all why it should not be a candidate for the main page. What I was trying to say was that if we want to debate how the duties Raul performs are handled, thats well and good, but the "I don't like what goes on the main page" half of this argument is only going to detract from debating more important issues, imo. Resolute 17:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Why on earth should we premiere FAing of obscure content when there is absolutely no lack of it? Obscure topics already have so much going for them on Wikipedia. If anything, they're extremely comfortable topics that have few or no controversies and little general interest. I don't like the argument that TFA is merely some kind of editor award, but I like it even less when it's implied that stuff like individual episodes of Family Guy or minor characters in any random number of Stargate TV-shows are great encyclopedic feats. If we're supposed to encourage editors, we should focus on featuring reasonably notable topics with good overall relevance to the general public, because those topics are the ones that require the most effort to bring to FA level.
Peter Isotalo 06:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
you coulndn't be more right Peter. There needs to be a higher threshold of notability for the featured article. Personally, I can't understand why that was an article in it's own right at all and not just a couple of lines in a page on computer game censorship or something, after so many people thought likewise in the articles AfD, which it only rather narrowly survived, how it ended up as the featured article is beyond belief. Petepetepetepete (talk) 08:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] proposal 4: a single mistake does not require a change in process

OK, by any definition of importance, the change in rating of a video game is pretty unimportant. There are widespread complaints about too many video game FAs on the main page. And if we are going to feature a video game, there are people at WP:TFA/R who should be given first consideration.

So let's say Raul made a mistake.

Now, how did we segue from a single mistake to these wild claims about a broken process? FAC is not backlogged, given Sandy's work. The FAs are not in disrepute and they are not in decline (promotions are increasing by 30% a year). Finally, the TFAs have been consistently well-balanced, considering the pool we're working with.

Lots of smoke here, but I don't see a fire. Marskell (talk) 18:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Didn't we just have a fairly serious attempt at discussing the possible over-representation of video game articles on the main page over at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests? There was plenty of high-pitched arguing, but there were also some pretty decent attempts formulate questions relevant to why video games should be treated as though the topic was equal to any other random topic (whether it be biology or phonetics). There was not one single serious attempt to answer any of the pertinent questions. I find the suggestions for recall highly inappropriate, but I do think Raul made a very poor choice in this case. With the recent video game debate in mind, this selection seems almost like a needlessly high-handed argument in that debate, even if it might not have been the intention.
Peter Isotalo 11:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Interesting. I had not seen this discussion until you had told me about it. It does not strengthen Raul's case to learn that the ESRB Rating article was promoted while this discussion was ongoing. I think that the Chrono Trigger article would be a much stronger choice for promotion than the ESRB one. -- RoninBK T C 12:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with this point, and aside from this, my point in "recalling" (probably a bad choice of word on my part) Raul was not to "punish" him for a single mistake (although I don't think it is a single mistake) but to give Wikipedians a first chance at defining the position and choosing the person to be in it. Raul deserves a lot of credit for his early and continuing hard work on creating Featured Articles, which I perhaps did not convey, but he used this to ascend to what is perhaps one of the single most powerful editorial positions at Wikipedia without any term, without defining its boundaries, and without ever having been vetted or any other candidates being presented. Even if he had been doing a perfect job, I think that would be sufficient reason after such a long time to reform the process and give people an option. Egregious breaches like this one only make it more urgent. NTK (talk) 19:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Geez, NTK, why don't you present yourself for the position, since you seem to know so well what should and what shouldn't go on the front page? No other candidates have ever been presented because none has presented himself, not because someone prevented candidates from asking for the position, you know. Hell, you even know what represents an "egregious breach" for something that doesn't even have a set of rules for defining a breach. And you don't even think that it was his first mistake, you must have been following his work and making note of his mistakes (what sort of mistake did he do, by the way, and by what rules?). Seriously, just go yourself for the position or find someone else that can replace Raul. And why do you say that he "used this" to "ascend" to a powerful editorial position. "This" is his "early and continuing hard work", and it wasn't "used" by him to reach the position, he was named by others because of it, and no one else did that work, who were they supossed to put instead?. Really, your arguments don't convince me at all, and I don't find them constructive. If you want to change the process then propose viable alternatives instead of making veiled accussations against raul and general undefined complaints against mistakes you don't specify, ok? --Enric Naval (talk) 20:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I did present multiple clear alternatives and, your sarcasm aside, I would in fact volunteer myself for the position if nobody else would, although I don't think there haven't been other candidates because nobody is willing but because there was never an opportunity for other candidates to be presented. Raul was "ratified" on the Featured Article talk page 3.5 years ago by a handful of editors and that was it. That may be "inertia" at work but that is certainly not "consensus." NTK (talk) 21:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] proposal 5: The position becomes a duty role

Based on my comments above, as an interim step - is there any reason why the position of director couldn't become a duty role fulfilled by 3 or 4 (very) trusted editors on a rotating basis - thus building in redundancy to the organisational process and variability to the selection without dis-stabilising the current set-up? --Fredrick day (talk) 19:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I rather like this one. While it does require we find some highly trusted editors, it definitly has KISS working in its favor. Oberiko (talk) 19:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
While it does require we find some highly trusted editors - surely we can rustle up 3 or more editors that a) have the type of experience we want, b) want to do it and c) meet the approval of the community. If we can't, we've got a far bigger problem :) --Fredrick day (talk) 19:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Given that a problem has not been clearly articulated, I'm not sure what this solution will accomplish. Marskell (talk) 19:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
It will ensure that those who fancy having a go at the job get a chance and that redundancy and variability is built into the role. Is there some inherent problem with other members of the community taking a turn at this role or are we saying there is some particular reason it has to be one person until they have decided they had enough/die? If I wanted to have a go at the role, what is the reason currently that I cannot? --Fredrick day (talk) 19:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
That the process continues to move smoothly is the only real priority. (We're not a democracy for a reason.) FAC is not backlogged—just the opposite. Sandy is closing virtually all of them anyway now; adding extra people for the sake of adding extra people is a solution in search of a problem. I would not be opposed to a page detailing the current understanding of responsibilities, however. Marskell (talk) 20:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
So what is the current process for me to stand for the post? --Fredrick day (talk) 21:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Right now, it is based on participation. Those who actively participate in the Featured content processes get "promoted" to more power. SandyGeorgia was recently promoted to be Raul's delegate for closing FACs, because she was commenting on almost every single FAC out there. Those who prove that they are interested in and understand the process get the ability to do more things. Those who don't participate really don't deserve the job. Karanacs (talk) 22:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
promoted by who? how? --Fredrick day (talk) 22:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Well, Fredrick day, since you've not been seen participating at FAC, it's hard to understand what would qualify you to understand the job. In fact, most of the people criticizing today's FA have rarely been seen at FAC, which says ... something. If editors feel that articles are getting through FAC that shouldn't, those editors should be in there, understanding the standards, understanding WP:WIAFA and doing the thankless reviewing (as for example, Karanacs and Woody do). Criticizing Raul when you've never walked in those shoes is ... interesting. And I disagree with Karanacs' use of the word power; if we call it power, I had far more of that when I had the power to Oppose articles that didn't meet criteria. I also got a lot more chocolates. Bottom line is, FAC is a community process, and it's curious that anyone who isn't helping and isn't reviewing should be criticizing what gets promoted, since Wiki works on consensus. Why would we dilute volunteers even further by having multiple people do what Raul already does just fine? (ec) By who? By regular FAC participants, who know what the "job" entails and who's been there long enough to understand every aspect. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Please READ my comments on this matter and in particular my comments about Raul (ie the total lack of them ) and then retract your comment about Criticizing Raul or I will ask for you to blocked for misrepresenting a) my comments and b) my proposal. I am good faith editor interested in a) how the process currently runs and b) is their scope for improvement? I am not interested in a witchhunt - lots of other editors are - but that's not my problem. Have I asked for him to be replaced? no Have I asked for anything to happen? no. Am I having a conversation on a policy page with other good faith editors? yes I am. Will I continue to do so? yes. The "how would I get elected" comment is because I am trying to find out more about the process, let me make this clear - I have no interest in doing the job, my temperament is entirely unsuitable for the job. That does not mean as a good faith editor I cannot ask about positions or processes that I perceive (and maybe will not at the end of this process) as not being entirely in line with the spirit of the community. Attack my proposal, attack my understanding of what goes on but don't attack me as an editor because it's uncalled for and is the sort of tactic that you are accusing other people of. --Fredrick day (talk) 23:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Please read my comments. I'm sorry you seem to have overinterpreted my "you" to the individual "you" instead of the global "you". Raul is being criticized by people on this thread; please don't take it personally, because you're not the only person participating on this thread. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
My apologies if I've over-reacted. I entirely understand that it must be difficult to deal with the constant trolling and the like that Raul's role but let's me clear about this - I'm actually not bothered that it's Raul that doing the job and from what I can see he's done an excellent job, it's the position I'm interested in - I think the nature of it is inherently against the spirit of the community and that's why I have been trying to tease out here. People can disagree with me (and many do strongly) but as best as possible, I'd like to keep this about the role not about the person fulfilling the role. --Fredrick day (talk) 23:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
No problem, thanks, and I'm sorry if it seemed personal :-) I'll let others explain the dangers of the breakdown that could occur if more than one person did the task Raul does. It's been covered many times, ad nauseum, on many forums, but perhaps I'm not the best person to explain. The simplest summary is Marskell's; until a problem is identified, we don't need a solution. One article that a few (very few, actually) editors don't like, when none of those editors participate in or took the time to oppose the article at FAC, is not a problem looking for a solution. The solution is simple: anyone who isn't happy about what they see on the main page can get active at WP:FAC or WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Well I think the first think I need to do is take an active role in FAC and see if this changes my views on the position. then in a while think a bit more if I want to make this an actual proposal. Does that seem fair? Regards --Fredrick day (talk) 23:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Nothing would please most FAC and FAR regulars more than more knowledgeable reviewers: here's a response I recently gave someone wanting to get involved, explaining the best way to get started. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC) Also, you might want to transclude the FAC urgents list to your talk page; I regularly update the FACs most in need of additional review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
em.. sure I'll em.. transclude it with the em..phase invertor? (hint: can someone do it for me or tell me what to do?) --Fredrick day (talk) 23:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
It's on my talk page; just do what I did :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Missing the point

I hate to say this, having read only the beginning of the discussion, a lot of people seem to be missing the point. Raul does not choose feature articles. Featured articles are decided by an existing process, completely community driven. If you think an article shouldn't have been a featured article then you are perfectly entitled to put it thru FAR (after it is on the main page). Indeed if you think things are bad enough you are welcome to put thru an emergency motion to Raul to schedule something else in it's place before it gets on the main page. If you don't want 'crap' articles to be featured articles in the first place then you should take part in the existing community driven process. Don't complain that only 3 editors pushed thru a featured article. Complain that you, and everyone else didn't take part in the discussion which made it a featured article in the first place. The simple fact is we are still only producing featured articles at a very slow rate and there is no reason why you can't be more involved in the featured article process perhaps even taking part in every discussion. If the existing process isn't working, then replacing Raul, making TFA community driven or whatever other oftrepeaten but flawed ideas are not going to help anything since clearly it isn't Raul that is the problem but the fact that the community is allowing unworthy articles to be FA (if that is really the case). Indeed it would be a major mistake for Raul to independently decide 'this article isn't really FA worthy' so I won't TFA it, if the community have decided it's a FA then Raul too has to go thru the community process to delist a FA. Nil Einne (talk) 14:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The queue to get on the mainpage is hundreds of articles long and is growing rapidly. With one TFA per day there has to be a selection that is based on something other than just FA status or we'd wind up with an obvious systemic bias on the main page. Raul does a pretty good job of that, but he's not merely a randomizer.
Peter Isotalo 14:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
It's important to remember that a lot of those in the queue may no longer meet current standards. From 2006 on, I left my FAs on the long-term request page, and they never made it because they deteriorated with time and I did not keep them up to snuff. An embarrassing lot of FAs are like that, so I hope there isn't any stigma with putting one up for FAR. It can only help an article (unless it's done with stupid bias, ulterior motives, or for argumentative, spiteful reasons). That said, putting something up for FAR because it is "too obscure" is an hilarious notion. In a way, I am happy that the featuring of (gasp) a video game article has caused such a bitch storm. Now the issue can come to a boiling point and something can be done so one of the most FA-rich WikiProjects doesn't feel like a second class group of Wikipedians when we try to promote our hard work. ZeaLitY [ DREAM - REFLECT ] 23:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Agree with NTK

The featured article process is so opaque and, at times, arbitary, that it's a complete waste of time contributing to it. Unlike complex AfDs, featured article discussion outcomes never have any sort of 'summing up', so we can never find out who's arguments swung who, or if the arguments were examined at all. In fact, it's done by a bot. Case in point, 300 (film) was promoted on the back of a discussion with 5 supports and 5 opposes, with the support coming from those who'd worked on the article.

A review was started for the featured article which started this off, ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but this has now been closed and archived after a single day of discussion. By a bot. I suppose I could go around, cap in hand, and beg for information on who was controlling Gimmebot and why they closed the discussion, but really, I should not have to. Such institutionalised secrecy is unacceptable.--Nydas(Talk) 08:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The bots don't close the discussions and this is not hidden: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/archiving with the delegates being User:Joelr31 and User:Marskell. You can see who removed the FAR in the page history and this is clearly stated in the FAC instructions. Woody (talk) 11:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Having to inspect the FAR page history to discover closer identities and justifications is obscurantist and user-unfriendly. Why can't they just sign the discussions and give a short justification, like admins do for AfDs? That way, it would be easier to identify and challenge bad decisions.--Nydas(Talk) 13:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)