Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates: Difference between revisions

FACs needing feedback ; view • edit
MLS Cup 2022	Review it now
Fountain Fire	Review it now
1973 FA Charity Shield	Review it now

Browse history interactively

← Previous edit Next edit →

Content deleted Content added

VisualWikitext

Inline

Revision as of 19:51, 12 October 2011

Shortcut

WT:FAC

Featured article removal candidates view edit
Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition	Review now
Helium	Review now
Martin Keamy	Review now
Pauline Fowler	Review now
Battle of Red Cliffs	Review now
Mariah Carey	Review now
Pokémon Channel	Review now
Concerto delle donne	Review now
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask	Review now
Geography of Ireland	Review now

Image check, please

Could someone do an image check for Heidi Game? There are only two.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:19, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:41, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FAC: Stephen, King of England

I don't want to be a grouch, but I am a little concerned about the form this FAC has taken. While I have no quarrel at all with the care and attention that reviewers are giving to this article, what is taking place is very clearly a peer review. It has been repeatedly emphasised, by delegates and other reviewers (including me) that FAC is not peer review; that articles requiring such a level of attention are almost certainly not ready for FAC, and should not be nominated. There is a danger that, by letting this case pass without comment, a precedent will be established whereby other articles will be nominated in the expectation that they can be brought up to FAC standard within the process. If there is a reason for treating this article as a special case, can we be told what the argument is? Otherwise, the general case for the rapid closure of underprepared articles—an issue raised earlier on this discussion page—already looks harder to justify. Brianboulton (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I regard what I'm doing as a content review primarily... should I NOT be checking the actual content of the article against the sources? I'm pretty much dammed if I do and dammed if I don't... if I do not check the article for its actual content when we obviously have someone qualified to do so, what happens when someone challenges the factual accuracy of something later? We say peer review isn't required, but then you seem to be requiring peer review. If I didn't think the article was close, I would indeed quick fail the article - I've never been noted for shyness about that. However, I am actually spot checking the sources for plagarism here .. which is bringing up some stuff that needs to be straightened out. Whatever. I can close the whole review out and just not bother content reviewing again at FAC if that's the consensus, but lately, we've had plenty of reviews just as in depth, but nothing has been brought up about them ... sorry if I'm seeming touchy, but I finally get something I can actually spot check and content review and now it's an issue... (sighs). I am seriously beginning to think that Wikipedia is a hobby I've outgrown sometimes... Ealdgyth - Talk 19:20, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember ever seeing an article where the reviewers simply posted "supported" and that's it. Since there is a long established tradition that some reviewers believe that an article should be turned into what they prefer, instead of being actually improved, I can't believe that we shall see simpler reviewers in the near future. P.S.: Nowhere I'm talking about Stephen, King of England's article or the editors involved in it. This a comment regarding the FAC in general. --Lecen (talk) 19:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So you're looking for "simpler" reviewers? As the competent ones get chased away you may have your wish in the future. Malleus Fatuorum 19:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brian, I'm not challenging your judgment about general standards, but I think general standards have to step aside here. We happen to have a reviewer who has in-depth knowledge. If she says she wants to keep going, and if the delegates choose to overrule her, then fine; but I don't think it's the place of uninvolved reviewers to overrule her. She's the one with the passion and the knowledge and the desire to make the article the best it can be, in this case, and (just my position) she's welcome to whatever tools she wants to use to make that happen. FWIW, I'm also reviewing. - Dank (push to talk) 19:34, 23 September 2011 (UTC) (P.S. I just realized I'm probably trying to defend my own right to fiddle with articles after they get to FAC as much as Ealdgyth's right, because I'd prefer to have the option, in some cases, of waiting until an article hits FAC before I finish up the copyediting ... that's not ideal, but it's sometimes more convenient than trying to guess when the article is just about to hit FAC, or trying to badger people into following my timetable.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear. I often don't bother to copyedit articles until they hit FAC. After all, who knows if they ever will? Malleus Fatuorum 20:00, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that articles often attract detailed scrutiny only at FAC. I cannot agree that the article in question was not ready for FAC. At a glance you can see that it looks like a featured article. It is detailed, comprehensive and well-sourced. It has been through GA and A-class reviews. Peer Review is nearly useless, as there are not enough reviewers. Ealdgyth is doing the right thing, and is to be commended. We need more reviewers like that. The article should stay at FAC as long as the reviewers have something to say, and the nominator wants to keep it there. The delegates can manage arbitrarily long FAC queues; the only problem is the onerous restriction of one article per nominator at a time. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Onerous it is, and I wish we could consistently get the page size below or around 30 noms so we could discuss removing that restriction. In the meantime, 1) review more to help reduce the backlog, and 2) if you have a FAC up that is close to maturing with no outstanding issues, then ask one of the delegates for an exception. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A question: At first glance it seems that 30 noms is a backlog of 30 days' worth of FACs. But of the 3,382 FAs at last glance, some 1,351 have not appeared on the front page, so you actually have three years' supply of FAs? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:10, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should make it clear that the question I raised is not Ealdgyth's or anybody else's right to review any article, merely whether FAC is the most appropriate forum for this kind of in-depth review. Personally I would have preferred to see this detailed scrutiny take place at peer review, or on the article's talk page. The danger is that editors may misunderstand this precedent and nominate underprepared and unreviewed articles believing that the FAC reviewers will do their work for them. However, if the argument here is that we have a willing expert prepared to comb through an already well-prepared article to make it even better, then I can accept that as a special case, though not as a general precedent.

I must take issue with the remark, above: "Peer Review is nearly useless, as there are not enough reviewers". This is an ignorant view, not to mention disparaging to the work of others. A high proportion – at least half – of the current FACs underwent detailed peer reviews. Take a look. There may not be enough reviewers, but the regulars at PR are dedicated, and spend many thankless hours going through often deeply unpromising material, and almost every article that looks a viable candidate for FA will get a thorough peer review. It's an important part of the review process that should be supported, not dismissed. Brianboulton (talk) 00:03, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed: this was a special case, and the few dedicated peer reviewers are amazing. - Dank (push to talk) 00:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review obviously isn't always "nearly useless"; I have an article currently going through FAC that benefited greatly from its peer review. But I've also done several peer reviews where there's been no feedback at all from the nominator, not even a word of thanks for the time it takes to read through the article. FAC, for me, is where it starts to get serious, and I see nothing at all untoward in Ealdgyth getting serious. Malleus Fatuorum 01:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While sometimes peer review can be effective, but in my wikiproject, about 60% of articles that go to peer review (they are not that many) get one or zero reviews. However, I do think it should be required for article to go for GAN first, then FAC. BTW, as of this writing, we have 33 FAC's up at this time, three of which have at least three supports and zero opposes. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 16:02, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying there are thirty-three hurricanes at FAC?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, I mean total articles not just hurricane ones. Sorry for the confusion. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 20:52, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was not my intention to disparage the work of others, ignorant though I may be, and I apologise for any offence given. I was thinking of this article which was peer reviewed only to be quick-failed at FAC, then peer reviewed again, only to be quick-failed a second time at FAC. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:05, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template preload

Would someone here familiar with template-speak please look at Template:Featured article review/Template:FAR/Wikipedia:Featured article review preload and figure out why the preload doesn't work? I mentioned it at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review#Preload. As far as I can make out, reviews up to February preloaded the article tools and links, and reviews after March did not. DrKiernan (talk) 14:50, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, I think. Ucucha (talk) 14:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if that edit will fix it, although I haven't thoroughly checked anything. I'm saying this because the template hasn't been edited since April 2010; are you saying March 2010 or March 2011? Gary King (talk · scripts) 19:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2011. It does look better after that edit: if I do a mock FAR, the tools seem to have come back. DrKiernan (talk) 19:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I actually stole the change I made from WP:Featured article preload, used at FAC, which does work. Perhaps MediaWiki 1.17, which was introduced in March, made some changes to the way noinclude is handled in preloads. Ucucha (talk) 20:20, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image check ...

On Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fairfax Harrison/archive1 please? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:31, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doing...Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please do an image check on [Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turban Head eagle/archive1 Turban Head eagle] ?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doing...Nikkimaria (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:07, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are the images okay with Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Willamette River/archive2? Jsayre64 (talk) 02:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Vukovar

A little help ... please see my oppose and let me know if I'm off base. I'm asking here because this one is headed back to FAC soonish. - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to give in on this one; it's not urgent. - Dank (push to talk) 21:02, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Close under one day?

Is it now customary to close nominations in under a day (example? Even before the nom had the chance to reply, or others with interest in the article could have a chance to look at the nom and add their opinions? I think closing the noms so quickly is very unhelpful. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

3 detailed opposes, clearly requiring a lot of work, in less than 5 hours. Yes it is usual. The nominator has plenty to work on now. Johnbod (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I replied at the FAC. Not really seeing how the nominator has been abused here. - Dank (push to talk) 17:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"gross overcitation"

While looking at this review, I was struck by several puzzling remarks: "gross overcitation" (Wehwalt), "The citation saturation was an immediate concern" (Graham Colm). Now, I agree with Nikkimaria's "Overabundance of citations in the lead - per WP:LEAD, much of this material should appear and be cited in the article proper". But I'd like to ask of Wehwalt and of Grahalm if this is what they meant, or is it something else? Looking at the body, while I may not favor this particular citation style, I certainly DO NOT see any overabundance of cites, in fact I still see some unreferenced sentences, and given that the article uses over 200 sources, and many paragraphs contain sentences from multiple sources. For example, consider the very first para, with the following structure: Sentence 1 - Reference 8, S2R8, S3R42, S4R8, S5R8a (different page), S6R43, S9R44, S10R45. In this example, one could argue that this para has one ref too many (S3 and S4), but frankly, I think that if it wasn't there one could be cautious of what reference backs it up (just like for all the sentences that do not have a references, I'd wonder if it is the following sentence ref, or was it moved from somewhere else, or inserted unreferenced)? This is in fact the problem with the second para (S1R46, S2R47, S3-unreferenced, S4R48, S5R44). Here there is most certainly not too many references, but a sentence making an important claim goes unreferenced and without checking the source (a book, without a Google Book link, making the verification that much more cumbersome), I, as a reader, cannot trust this sentence - it may be backed by the following R48, but it might also have been moved there from somewhere else, or added plainly unreferenced. Thus while I agree with the reviewers that the lead has overcitation problems, my primary comment would be inadequate citations in the rest of the article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I saw strings of six and eight citations following a sentence. That's over the top. We have footnotes for purposes of verification. If you have eight footnotes following a sentence, is that stated to give support to the proposition by showing that eight authors stand behind it? Or that facts in that sentence are drawn from eight different sources? It makes it very difficult for verification to have to deal with a plethora of footnotes. What I would suggest is that you source individual sentences or groups of sentences with no more than three footnotes, and three should be the maximum and rare.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And yes, it was especially bad because it was in a lede, which need not be cited so long as the material is reflected in the article body. However, I don't hold the fact that a lede is cited against an article, some people do cite their ledes. I personally don't think it is the best practice, but it's OK in my book--Wehwalt (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CITEBUNDLE recommends bundling citations to prevent them becoming a distraction from the text and interrupting the flow. DrKiernan (talk) 17:07, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I object to more than 3 references appearing like taxis in a row - it's ugly, and following Johnbod's law actually makes the reader more, not less, suspicious of the statements, as this is normally found only in the worst battleground articles. If you want to cite multiple sources, put them all in the same note. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That clarifies things to me. I can understand the benefits of the bundle, I was afraid some people were annoyed at the fact that too many sentences had cites. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 23:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Featured article candidates/Background of the Spanish Civil War/archive2‎

Hoping some kind person will do some copyediting on this one. It's not bad, and it sailed through the A-class review ... it's just in a dense, historical style that I'm not good with. - Dank (push to talk) 21:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review needed

Would someone mind doing a source review for Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Shapley–Folkman_lemma/archive1? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request for two scripts

Links are a constant problem at FAC. Two tools would save a lot of time:

a script that removes (bringing up a "changes" screen, so that the removal happens when you "save") the second and third link to the same term in an article (counting or not counting links in the lead).
a script that brings up a "changes" screen that will add links from a user-definable list.

Can I bribe someone (with free copyediting) to work on either or both of these? - Dank (push to talk) 13:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first one gives me pause. I will sometimes have a second link in the body to the same term if I feel the reader needs reminding, if it was only briefly mentioned earlier and we've had a lot go on since then.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, it won't always be correct, but it's useful to be able to identify repeat links easily. I'll see what I can do. Ucucha (talk) 14:22, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote a little piece of JavaScript at User:Ucucha/duplinks.js (documentation at User:Ucucha/duplinks) that hightlights links that occur more than once in an article. It's prone to false positives (legitimate repeat links), though; I'll probably add some code excluding anything in an infobox or navbox. Ucucha (talk) 18:59, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice. Excluding any infoboxes or navboxes would help a lot; I tried it on HMS Eagle (1918), and it's highlighting a lot of links duplicated in the infobox. How hard would it be to make it configurable to ignore the lead section? Many writers link things once in the lead and once below the lead. - Dank (push to talk) 19:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Ucucha, this will be useful (especially after you enhance the code as you suggest). Now how about a script that tells me what to write when I'm having trouble creating decent prose? Sasata (talk) 19:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the script to exclude any links in infoboxes and navboxes; I'll think about how to separate off the lead. I'll want it to also check the lead separately for duplicate links; Eagle, for example, has aircraft carrier linked twice in the first few sentences.

Sasata, something like:

$( function() { if(article.isBadlyWritten() { alert("Your prose is terrible. Go back to school."); } });

perhaps? Ucucha (talk) 19:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, Ucucha, if you write that tool for Sasata I'm going to need to steal it :) As for the link checker, I've installed it and like it. Agree with the above though that it would be nice if something could be done to separate out the lead, as I often re-link something in the body that was linked previously in the lead (especially if there are six sections and 3,000 words between the two!). Dana boomer (talk) 20:08, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to do the same. I've now rewritten the script to first create a separate container element for the lead, and then search for duplicate links in the lead and the rest of the article separately. Ucucha (talk) 20:56, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you (maybe optional) exclude file captions, templates, tables and references (named and unnamed) aswell please? Additional links in those "special areas" seem to be generally accepted. Many thanks for that nice tool. GermanJoe (talk) 12:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that would help. I'll encourage people to make some judgment calls on when (not) to follow the recommendations of the tool. After we've got some confidence that the tool won't be misused, then it would be really helpful if the tool pulled up an edit-changes screen that would actually remove the extraneous links when you hit Save. - Dank (push to talk) 14:54, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on a little homemade script for the first function, that analyzes a complete article and creates 3 lists: a list with all found links per section, a list of all duplicate links (including pipes) with total and lead count, and a listing of possibly problematic link situations. There are only 2 slight problems, it's written in Open Object Rexx (a common public license REXX variant) and it is coded as a simple tool without much regard to structure or professional coding guidelines. If any competent programmer wants to check it or expand it for Wiki-usage, i'll be glad to mail it. GermanJoe (talk) 19:06, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review needed

WP:Featured article candidates/Stephen, King of England/archive1. Nothing but the image check is missing. - Dank (push to talk) 13:57, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. One image I suspect you'll have to delete or replace, a few others need mild tweaking. Interesting article.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 15:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statistical analysis of how FAC handles articles on important topics

The experience of bringing brain here has revived concerns I have long felt about how FAC works, and finally motivated me to do some statistical analysis. My findings are reported in User:Looie496/Analysis of FAC. I would be interested in comments, and would especially like to know if I have made any incorrect assumptions. Looie496 (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats on the article though I don't consider medical articles within my sphere of expertise, and pleased that I managed to sneak on the list by proxy of Mr. Nixon. My personal opinion that any FA from before about 2007 had an excellent chance of being crap and therefore what you are seeing is a rise in FA standards. Possibly the fact that by 2009 almost no important articles were being written from scratch and so a subject had to attract someone's attention both to write it, and to improve it.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the vastly increasing standards (I have a half-drafted essay here) means what you're seeing is the result of a similar amount of effort throughout this time period. Hastily (by modern standards) promoted articles have continued to improve to merit their FA status; many articles that could have been FA then are GA now. So overall there is no doubt that fewer important topics are making it to FA, but this is not indicative of a fall in general improvement in these areas. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting essay, thanks for pointing me to it. Although I agree with much of what you say, my conclusions are not as sanguine as yours. I see no evidence that the rate of FA promotion of important articles will increase in the future -- my personal experiences tell me it will very likely not happen unless policies are changed. Looie496 (talk) 16:08, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I see a problem. Of the 3+ million articles on Wikipedia, how many of those would you consider "important"? If we use the core and vital lists as a rough indicator of "importance" then perhaps 3,000 articles? Is the ratio of 3000:3 million much different than the ratio of lesser:important articles being promoted at FAC? In general, "important" articles require a lot more work than those on minor topics, and those who wish to undertake this worthy task should try to make their FAC experience as smooth as possible by soliciting opinions of as many other experienced editors as they can before bringing the article to FAC. A collaborative strategy should be the norm for articles on important/core/vital topics. Sasata (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly think there is a problem, of which FA is just a symptom. Typically, certainly in the humanities, the more important the subject, the weaker our article is likely to be (at all levels), and we are just missing any article on many important topical subjects (eg Italian Renaissance sculpture - almost any general sculpture topic). We have done very well for nearly 11 years without any significant concerted editorial focus or direction directing our coverage, but that has now ceased to work. Coverage of narrower topics continues to expand, but few articles on large topical subjects get significantly improved, in my experience. Johnbod (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the concern - my own thoughts on it are in the written-up version of my talk to the UK Chapter conference in April. I could quibble with the selection basis of the stats - to my mind the weakness is best expressed as affecting all broad/large topical subjects, especially if abstract, rather than merely "important" ones. I'm happy the Statue of Liberty is "important", but at the end of the day, like the vast majority of FAs, it is a single discrete subject with a fairly limited literature. The bibliography lists 6 works, the earliest from the 1980s, though other sources are also used. Some ones you missed that are certainly broad, and I would say important, are my own Funerary art - for which the total literature is perhaps larger than any other FA except maybe Shakespeare, Mayan stelae, and Ancient Egyptian temple. In Funerary art, whose theoretical scope covered the whole world since the Stone Age, I think reviewers were happy to accept that an FA-size piece could only skim the surface, and had to skip large parts of that surface. Johnbod (talk) 16:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well put. Most of us work alone or in small groups and articles about subjects limited in scope and requiring only consultation of a limited literature are within our abilities. Articles on large amorphous subjects or with large literatures are harder, that is why I am impressed by your efforts on brain (and Johnbod's on the Funerary art article). There's a reason few core topics are FA.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FA could do more to be relevant

1. If one argues that DYK should be deprecated "because we need to concentrate on quality, rather than quantity", then the vast amount of work on low view, low importance FAs, kind of says FA is really not the solution either.

2. Today, we have an FA running on an African game park that gets 30 views per day. At least, it is a decent article and covers its subject. A few days ago, we had an FA on an obscure, demolished rural train station. That article, should arguably NOT even be an article. Certainly, the writing does not mostly cover the topic of the train station, but instead is padded out about the obscure, expired railroad. And no one noticed this during the review! And this is an article from 2009. And that ran on TFA in 2011.

3. If we really care about our readers, we would CARE about how poorly we are covering topics that are either high view or high importance (almost all "vital articles" are also high view. If you don't believe me, wander over there and click on 5 at random.

4. The very highest level articles are somewhat difficult as they are really categories or entire subjects of human knowledge (e.g. history). However, obviously it is possible for someone to summarize a field, people do it all the time in the real world. And for that matter, the vast majority of "level 3" or "level 4" vital articles are on discrete subjects (a person, a species, an element). So, you don't feel up to an FA on religion, fine. That is no excuse, not to go after Erasmus, or Calvin, or St. Paul.

5. This place has about it a bit the stench of death and decline. I read a remark a while ago from someone saying she wanted the page to be "down" to 30 articles only. (And at that point, she would have multiple articles from specific people). Huh!? Why not want to grow? Imagine this thing 5 times the size. Then you could start to drive real improvement of the product for the reader. And the place is already dangerously in-bred (Sasata, Ucachaca, and Visionholder are some of our best, no doubt, but they are doing a huge amount of reviewing each others articles). Why not want to grow? In size, diversity, and RELEVANCE! Imagine if this were a project in the business world (or even an ambitious nonprofit). Where is the plan, the effort, the HEART to get better?

6. I can random brainstorm several ideas for overcoming the problem of low production of important content:

A. Fund some studies and bots (the vital article project is not really maintainable as is, we need an Excel pivot table, and automatic updating).

B. Shinier or new or different attagurl symbol for getting a more important topic to FA (or GA). You can say, no one responds to that, but I bet a lot of people do "care" about the stickers they get now (it drives work). And if we hear a lot of screams from the mushroom/coin/synagogue/busstop/hurrican writers, then maybe we know it does have an impact and they just want to keep getting rewards for irrelevant work.

C. A "ladder board" that accomplishes the same as alternate symbols. A simple thing would be to factor by pageviews. So Wehwalt, you probably need 50 towelhead coins to equal one tricky dick. Or use the vital article list (1 point for off the list, 5 points for level 4, 10 points for level 3, 20 points for level 2, 50 points for level 1).

D. Prioritized attention of reviewers and directors on the more important articles. Put them at the top, hector for reviews for them (I'm still remembering the request that I review a battleship article that the directoress said was dishwater dull (why not use psychic capital to drive the more important articles?))

E. Come up with a better method of doing reviews (the all on one page serves neither the writer nor the reviewers). It's not how reviews are done in the real world, not how done at open review journals, not how GA does it, etc. It is a way pain in the ass to go after any in depth topic, without the ability to do section breaks and the like. To really grapple with difficult and important topics (not check ref formatting on a sock drawer article), we need more space than the RFA-like process of these "old style" FAs.

F. For that matter, I really don't think directors should be "scanning down the page" and doing promote/archive. I have caught some where it was pretty obvious Karanac was not really engaging with the article and reading it well, but just doing sort of a clerical "wiki admin" close type process. Instead, divide up the articles by "editor". this means the specific director can immediately decide if an article should be cut without review and to watch the process and see if the thing is meeting needs or not. (The efficiency gain allows deeper engagement, than if it is just ad hoc "do you have time this weekend, to swing through").

G. Allocate TFA space prioritized by importance of the topic (page views or spot on vital list or what have you). But the train station? That thing is a sin. Just think what a normal "non wiki" person thinks when that is what you highlight? That is what you drive and reward? That is what you want? Jimbo's little kid in Africa needs more of that?

H. I wonder if GA is a part of the solution. I still see a lot of great important topics going through GA, but very few in FA. For that matter, while FAers say "we're not just a nitpick review", I can find several articles (like that damned train station) where it looks like no one really questioned the content, just went after sentence level prose issues and ref formatting.

I. A project to drive outreach to retired faculty.

J. More Jimmy Butler shit.

L. Prizes similar to the Declaration of Independence thing, that reward important articles. (And don't underestimate the nature of notoriety here. I can drive more competition in a salesforce by having a watch or a Harley (that is visible, that they show off) than just a cash reward.)

M. Some Jimbo/Sue editorials or the like.

N. Throw it out to the public (give talks on the PROBLEM) and see if it gets people to come. And not talks to UK wikimedia, but talks at nonwiki places.

O. A contest (project versus project) on how many Level 4 VAs, they can get to FA (or GA) in a specific time.

P. Require reviewing for FA submitters (I think it would actually drive LESS tit for tat reviewing, drive more diversity). Anyone capable of doing an FA is capable of doing a review. And

Q. Fill in more ideas...brainstorm, brainstorm.