actionforum@comcast.net wrote:
I noticed that an article I considered POV just became a featured article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_Soviet_Union
I've marked it NPOV, and have made several improvements, including a couple I made before it achieved featured article status.
How do articles become featured articles? I've read Wikipedia:Featured articles, and it talks about standards but not how the actual decision about the status is made. I looked at the nomination page, and there were only 5 supporting votes, and zero opposing votes, before mine which I have just added after the fact.
I am not criticising those reviewers, they may not be sensitive to some of the selection biases that can occur within articles or may have been unfamiliar with the subject.
I am however surprised that an article can become featured without far wider review that hopefully would catch incompleteness or biases such as this. I had seen contributions to featured articles cited as feathers in ones cap, so I thought the review must have been high. Is there a minimum number of supporting votes that are required? -- Silverback
May I suggest you put it on [[WP:FARC]] and then put it on [[WP:PR]].
However, the method that is used is that the article is submitted to [[WP:FAC]], who object or support the nomination. They cannot object with an non-actionable objection like the "topic is too obscure", because noone can actually do anything about such an objectionable. You might also want to see [[Wikipedia:What is a featured article]].
TBSDY