User:TonyTheTiger/sandbox/FOURRFC

Recently there has been a lot of controversy over three issues at WP:FOUR.

1. Should the project change the definition of the starting point of a new article from the point at which the article has its first encyclopedic content (readable prose that presents the notability of a topic) to the point at which it first appears in main article space. These definitions differ drastically when an article is created in userspace or a sandbox.
2. Does User:TonyTheTiger have any authority over the project as his self-proclaimed title of Director might imply
3. Can editors withdraw their names and articles from the list of awarded authors and articles. Note controversy involved both erasing one's name from the list (replaced with [placeholder]) and removing the whole article's line of dates from the table.

FYI-parties and projects contacted directly for this RFC: the 167 current FOUR awardees, WP:CREATE, WP:DYK, WP:GA, WP:GAC, WP:FA, WP:FAC, and WP:FOUR.

Details

The FOUR award is a recognition for persons who have made a significant difference in the development of a WP:FA at each stage of its development recognized by the project. Currently stage one of the four stages of development of a featured article is defined as the creation of the article. We have heretofore defined this as the stage in which the first encyclopedic content is added to the article. Operationally, this means that the first stage, known as the creation stage is the stage in which the first readable prose that defines a notable topic is added to an article. This leaves a window open for collaboration among editors who all contribute to an article before it becomes encyclopedic.

Proponents of the rule change suggest that people involved in a collaboration during its first 24 hours should be FOUR eligible. They also discuss diffs showing intention of being involved in the article before it was ever created, but have not stated whether one must show diffs of commitment prior to the article's creation.

This proposal enables those who did not make a difference at every currently-defined stage, but who made a difference in the article soon enough (within 24 hours) after missing out on making a difference in the first stage and who may have diffs showing an interest in making a difference at each stage to be FOUR-eligible although they made no difference to the article in the currently-defined first stage.

Why is this important

Hundreds of articles have been evaluated using the same criteria. Even when slight changes were made to the criteria historically, we have attempted to keep the list of awarded articles current for these changes. This change could impact the awarded articles in several ways.

Some articles could go from Rejected to FOUR-awarded

Example: Some people worked together outside of mainspace and moved the article and its article history into mainspace later. The very first edit was an encyclopedic edit and was by someone who was not involved in all stages that would result in a FOUR. Other editors who were part of this group were involved in all stages that would result in a FOUR.

Some articles could go from FOUR-awarded to rejected

Example: An article is created in user/sandbox space for 50 edits before the article and its article history are moved into mainspace. It achieves DYK with its 75th edit. Suppose that after moving the article to mainspace, the article was nominated by someone else who cleaned it up for DYK with the last 25 edits. Formerly, this article might have been a FOUR because edits 2-50 and 51-75 were the DYK phase. Now, Only edits 51-75 are the DYK phase. and the article would fail FOUR.

Some articles could go from a single awarded editor to multiple awarded editors

Example: Lets look at the Nick-D and Ian Rose article type that has so many panties in a bunch: People collaborated on the article while it was in user/sandbox space. The first encyclopedic content is added by one of them while the article is still not in the main space. The two continue to expand the article collaboratively. Then one of them moves it to article space. Then the two collaboratively put the article through DYK, GA and FA. Under the first encyclopedic content analysis of the article only one of them would be eligible for the award. If the userspace/sandbox article history is made known to the reviewer the person who started the article in userspace would be the awardee. If the article history is not made known to the reviewer, the person who moves the article into mainspace would be the awardee. Under the proposed revised rules both would be awardees.

Some articles could go from multiple awarded editors to a single awarded editor

Example: Editor 1 is the coordinator of a collaboration of the week for a WikiProject and starts the article in the project's sandbox by adding a {{underconstruction}} template as well as the project's WP:COTW template at the top. Then, editor 2 is a COTW participant who over the course of 100 edits adds 10 KB of readable prose with 50 WP:ICs. The first edit of those 100 was "Mrs. Foo is an XYZ award-winning Goo.", which clearly defines the article about Mrs. Foo as an encyclopedic topic assuming the XYZ award is sufficient to make someone notable among those who are in the Goo profession. Following the COTW, the main editor moves that article from the sandbox and nominates the article for the various FOUR stages. Formerly when judging the first encyclopedic content with the perspective that collaboration is allowed. The two individuals who made the first two edits would have been collaborators in the transition from a redlink to an encyclopedic topic. Under the mainspace date rule, the first editor made such trivial contributions that they would not be collaborators.

Issue 1 - Changing the criteria

Background

Since this project began 437 articles have been approved and approximately twice that many have been rejected (considering only current WP:FAs that have been both WP:GAs and WP:DYKs in the past). I.e. a total of XXXX articles that have been DYKs, GAs and FAs have been reviewed. In addition, in the early days of the FOUR award TonyTheTiger reviewed all pre-August 2007 FAs in search of the oldest FOURs. All of these have been reviewed for contribution by the same editor to the four stages based on the first stage being defined as the point at which the article has its first encyclopedic content. None of them have ever been reviewed based on the first stage being defined as the point at which the article first appears in main article space.

Changing the stages by which the criteria of the award are judged means that currently approved articles may be rejected for awards and currently rejected articles may be approved for awards. It also means articles currently approved for a single editor may be approved for multiple editors. It also means that future articles that may have been approved for multiple editors might only be approved for a single editor (no current article are approved for multiple editors).

Vote

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Discussion

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Issue 2 - Should the project have a Director

Background, pt 1

This has been a small project with only two regular editors (TonyTheTiger (talk · contribs) and Little Mountain 5 (talk · contribs)). Tony has curated the project for four years under the self proclaimed title of Director. However, with only two regulars, any group of 4 or 5 people who decide they want to change the project around can declare Tony's authority invalid and claim WP:CONSENSUS to change the project to be whatever they want. The only way to protect the stability of the project is to authorize a directorship. However, the project may be in need of new direction at times and the only way to allow for that is to allow the CONSENSUS of the day to have its say.

Vote, pt 1

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Background, pt 2

TTT has done the vast majority of the work to keep the project running over the last 4 years. And even the majority of this RFC, setting up possible changes, was prepared by TTT. He has reviewed the vast majority of candidates and made the vast majority of promotions. He has established most of the policies by which the project is run. Little Mountain 5 has also been a consistent contributor and probably knows enough to run the project. He is one of many potential candidates in an open election.

You can tell a lot about who has administered the project by looking at its history. Here are the edit histories of the project's main pages: Wikipedia:Four Award (edit counts), Wikipedia talk:Four Award (edit counts), Wikipedia:Four Award/Records (edit counts), Wikipedia talk:Four Award/FAQ (edit counts).

Vote, pt 2

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Issue 3 - Disassociation

Background

Nick-D (talk · contribs) and Ian Rose (talk · contribs) collaborated on Lockheed C-130 Hercules in Australian service by creating the article in user space. They transfered the article to main space. TonyTheTiger (talk · contribs) determined that this article only qualified one editor for the FOUR award based on the encyclopedic content rule. However, several editors felt that the main space appearance rule was better. Tony has refused to recognize this alternate rule, which would have made a second editor eligible. This led to three editors (Nick-D, Crisco 1492 (talk · contribs), and The ed17 (talk · contribs)) requesting to disassociate with FOUR by removing a total of 15 articles from the list of FOUR articles (18 articles are now impacted due to recent promotions). Oddly, Ian Rose, the editor who was denied FOUR by Tony's decision is not one of the three. Tony attempted to revert these changes by using [placeholder] in place of the user names in hopes of maintaining the historical integrity of the project. His attempts to revert these three editors led to him being blocked from WP for 48 hours by Bwilkins (talk · contribs).

At WP:WBE, it is common to replace your user ID with [placeholder]. At WP:WBFAN, editors may have their user ID removed but it is not clear that they can remove their articles from being included at WP:FA.

Four Award recipients

	User	Article	Award date	Creation date	DYK date	GA date	FA date
User:Crisco 1492
	[placeholder]	Ruma Maida	June 1, 2012	May 8, 2012	May 22, 2012	May 12, 2012	May 31, 2012
	[placeholder] (2)	? (film)	August 18, 2012	November 6, 2011	April 1, 2012	December 19, 2011	August 18, 2012
	[placeholder] (3)	Oerip Soemohardjo	September 11, 2012	May 7, 2012	May 14, 2012	June 17, 2012	September 11, 2012
	[placeholder] (4)	Andjar Asmara	September 20, 2012	August 7, 2012	August 15, 2012	September 2, 2012	September 20, 2012
	[placeholder] (5)	Mereka Bilang, Saya Monyet!	October 7, 2012	November 5, 2011	November 28, 2011	August 29, 2012	October 6, 2012
	[placeholder] (6)	Frank's Cock	December 3, 2012	August 17, 2012	December 1, 2012	October 24, 2012	November 15, 2012
	[placeholder] (7)	Terang Boelan	December 9, 2012	August 12, 2012	August 19, 2012	November 2, 2012	December 4, 2012
	[placeholder] (8)	Sair Tjerita Siti Akbari	April 6, 2013	October 10, 2012	October 24, 2012	October 26, 2012	April 6, 2013
	[placeholder] (9)	Gagak Item	May 26, 2013	March 4, 2013	March 8, 2013	March 10, 2013	May 26, 2013
	[placeholder] (10)	Lie Kim Hok	July 6, 2013	October 13, 2012	October 24, 2012	May 26, 2013	July 1, 2013
	[placeholder] (11)	Sorga Ka Toedjoe	August 3, 2013	June 10, 2013	June 20, 2013	June 11, 2013	July 23, 2013
	[placeholder] (12)	Djaoeh Dimata	August 3, 2013	July 1, 2013	July 5, 2013	July 15, 2013	August 3, 2013
	[placeholder] (13)	Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang	August 15, 2013	March 11, 2013	March 15, 2013	April 10, 2013	August 15, 2013
User:the ed17
	[placeholder]	Design 1047 battlecruiser	April 29, 2009	February 17, 2009	February 19, 2009	February 21, 2009	April 14, 2009
	[placeholder] (2)	Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes	June 17, 2009	February 14, 2009	February 21, 2009	February 17, 2009	June 16, 2009
	[placeholder] (3)	Japanese battleship Tosa	September 7, 2011	September 25, 2009	April 24, 2010	April 23, 2010	May 11, 2010
	[placeholder] (4)	Brazilian cruiser Bahia	September 17, 2011	September 4, 2009	September 12, 2009	September 11, 2009	October 31, 2009
User:Nick-D
	[placeholder]	Lockheed C-130 Hercules in Australian service	July 23, 2013	TBD	April 24, 2013	April 17, 2013	July 23, 2013

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Discussion

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Issue 4 - Collaboration

Background

Since the recent controversy revolved around giving FOUR credit to a second editor, we should consider whether we want the FOUR award to be open to collaborative credit. Since the final three stages are clearly easily collaborated on, the issue is whether we consider the start of the article to be a collaborative stage. I.E., do we want the single individual who made the edit that is considered the starting point of the article (first encyclopedic content, article enters main space) or do we want to consider all editors who contributed from the transition from a redlink to an encyclopedic article to be eligible for the award.

Encyclopedic content consideration collaboration types

1. Article started from a redirect: The redirector and the article creator who collaborate through DYK, GA and FA.
2. Article recreated after a WP:CSD or WP:AFD: Editors from the deleted article and the recreator who collaborate through DYK, GA and FA.
3. Article started with several edits before the first encyclopedic content: All editors who contributed before the article was encyclopedic who collaborate through DYK, GA and FA.

First enters mainspace collaboration types

1. All editors who make a notable contribution to the article before it enters mainspace as an encyclopedic topic.

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Discussion

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Issue 5 - Former FOUR records

Background

One of the issues raised during the controversy was whether we should retain a list of all formerly recognized FOUR articles. This is analogous to WP:FFA and WP:FFL. Some have raised the issue of removing South Side, Chicago from the list for reasons that may be for no other reason than to contest any authority I claim over the project. No arguments were presented, so I am not clear as to any rationale why we should not retain a list of former FOURs.

Vote

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Discussion

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