On 6/6/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Exactly. Tony has no 'authority' nor the right to single handedly take away Featured Article status, nor to grant it.
Why not? It's a wiki. We give people the 'authority' to single handedly call articles "stubs", to single handedly claim that an article needs cleanup, and to single handedly remove those distinctions.
My point was that clicking the edit button to take it away isn't the same as taking it away. I can go make a random sock account, edit some old FA from 2004, and take away the pretty Gold Star, and note that fact both here and on the Talk page. That doesn't make it not an FA. :) It just means I flung my mouse about spastically, hoping my decision would be accepted.
Some people thought it was important to have a single person choosing which
articles are featured on the front page. Those of us who disagreed and thought that it should instead be chosen by a collaborative process were outvoted, and conceded. Mark was named "featured article dictator", then it was changed to "featured article director", and proceeded to extend his powers to what they are now. No one really challenged him, because those of us who wanted the process to be community pretty much stopped participating altogether in the whole featured article mess.
I never messed around much with FA during my time. Who on earth made that dumb decision to give him (or anyone) alone such power? And why on Earth hasn't it be undone in the name of common sense?
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com