G'day Thomas,
I personally read "candidates" as "articles that could,
theoretically, be
improved to FA-level." Mostly because many comprehensive
articles simply
cannot.
Any article can, in theory, become an FA, so that definition is pretty much useless.
Depends whether by "in theory" you mean, "hey, man, anything's possible" or "with enough effort, this could happen". If the former, well, yes, any article could be an FA --- in the same way that a Muslim could become the next president of the United States of America. If the latter, then, no, not all articles could become FAs. That's one of the reasons why GA was set up, and one of the reasons why GA is such a failure.
Gallagher Mark George wrote:
G'day Thomas,
I personally read "candidates" as "articles that could, theoretically, be
improved to FA-level." Mostly because many comprehensive articles simply
cannot.
Any article can, in theory, become an FA, so that definition is pretty much useless.
Depends whether by "in theory" you mean, "hey, man, anything's possible" or "with enough effort, this could happen". If the former, well, yes, any article could be an FA --- in the same way that a Muslim could become the next president of the United States of America.
It only took them 172 years before they elected their first Catholic.
Ec
Depends whether by "in theory" you mean, "hey, man, anything's possible" or "with enough > effort, this could happen". If the former, well, yes, any article could be an FA --- in the same > way that a Muslim could become the next president of the United States of America. If the > latter, then, no, not all articles could become FAs. That's one of the reasons why GA was set up, and one of the reasons why GA is such a failure.
The rules for FAC specifically say that FA status can't be refused for a reason that can't be fixed, so by the letter of the law, all articles can become featured with enough work.
On 5/10/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Depends whether by "in theory" you mean, "hey, man, anything's possible"
or "with enough > effort, this could happen". If the former, well, yes, any article could be an FA --- in the same > way that a Muslim could become the next president of the United States of America. If the > latter, then, no, not all articles could become FAs. That's one of the reasons why GA was
set up, and one of the reasons why GA is such a failure.
The rules for FAC specifically say that FA status can't be refused for a reason that can't be fixed, so by the letter of the law, all articles can become featured with enough work.
Unfortunately that doesn't reflect the reality of things, as anyone who has worked on areas subject to systemic bias (and thus a lack of sources) can tell you.
Johnleemk
John Lee wrote:
The rules for FAC specifically say that FA status can't be refused for a reason that can't be fixed, so by the letter of the law, all articles can become featured with enough work.
Unfortunately that doesn't reflect the reality of things, as anyone who has worked on areas subject to systemic bias (and thus a lack of sources) can tell you.
Not to mention that there are a number of articles that are comprehensive at 4 or 5 paragraphs that are unlikely to make the FA grade because so little is known in the grand scheme of things.
I'm okay with that, but yeha.
-Jeff
Unfortunately that doesn't reflect the reality of things
Which is why I said "in theory". I'm well aware that practice doesn't work that way, but it should still be the goal of the FA system to be more inclusive and try and achieve the theory.
On 10/05/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Unfortunately that doesn't reflect the reality of things
Which is why I said "in theory". I'm well aware that practice doesn't work that way, but it should still be the goal of the FA system to be more inclusive and try and achieve the theory.
Perhaps, but FAC quite deliberately and with forethought crank up the requirements so that FAs stay "best of the best".
- d.
On 5/10/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/05/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Unfortunately that doesn't reflect the reality of things
Which is why I said "in theory". I'm well aware that practice doesn't work that way, but it should still be the goal of the FA system to be more inclusive and try and achieve the theory.
Perhaps, but FAC quite deliberately and with forethought crank up the requirements so that FAs stay "best of the best".
And there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that GA lost sight of its original purpose very early on, and became a mini-FA. I've had decent articles on subjects where not much can be written because of lacking sources rejected from GA - even in its first few months - and so I've given up completely on getting such articles recognised as being "good quality, but can't really go anywhere because they don't have sources or for some other reason can't make FA". In the end, these articles cannot be distinguished from the rest of the tripe that is normally on Wikipedia, and as such complicates things when, say, we want to compile articles illustrating the breadth of our coverage, since this practice effectively accentuates systemic bias.
And there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that GA lost sight of its original purpose very early on, and became a mini-FA. I've had decent articles on subjects where not much can be written because of lacking sources rejected from GA - even in its first few months - and so I've given up completely on getting such articles recognised as being "good quality, but can't really go anywhere because they don't have sources or for some other reason can't make FA". In the end, these articles cannot be distinguished from the rest of the tripe that is normally on Wikipedia, and as such complicates things when, say, we want to compile articles illustrating the breadth of our coverage, since this practice effectively accentuates systemic bias.
If there really aren't any reliable sources available, then the article shouldn't be on Wikipedia, since it is OR. Such articles are not what GA was invented for.
On 5/10/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
And there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that GA lost sight
of
its original purpose very early on, and became a mini-FA. I've had
decent
articles on subjects where not much can be written because of lacking sources rejected from GA - even in its first few months - and so I've
given
up completely on getting such articles recognised as being "good
quality,
but can't really go anywhere because they don't have sources or for some other reason can't make FA". In the end, these articles cannot be distinguished from the rest of the tripe that is normally on Wikipedia,
and
as such complicates things when, say, we want to compile articles illustrating the breadth of our coverage, since this practice
effectively
accentuates systemic bias.
If there really aren't any reliable sources available, then the article shouldn't be on Wikipedia, since it is OR. Such articles are not what GA was invented for.
No, I mean articles like, say, [[Karamjit Singh]]. There aren't many (if any) sources about his personal life - where he was born, where he went to school, normal biographical stuff. So does this mean he should be excluded from consideration for things like GA because he can't fulfill the normal requirements of a biographical article?
I'm not talking about articles which don't have any sources at all. I'm talking about articles which can source all the existing statements fine, but can't be expanded because of lacunae in reliable sources. Should these articles thus be disqualified from being marked as above the quality of a typical article, when most of our articles don't even have sources for all their statements, and we've become known for things like that illustrated in the webcomic below?
http://www.wondermark.com/d/291.html
Johnleemk
No, I mean articles like, say, [[Karamjit Singh]]. There aren't many (if any) sources about his personal life - where he was born, where he went to school, normal biographical stuff. So does this mean he should be excluded from consideration for things like GA because he can't fulfill the normal requirements of a biographical article?
I'm not talking about articles which don't have any sources at all. I'm talking about articles which can source all the existing statements fine, but can't be expanded because of lacunae in reliable sources. Should these articles thus be disqualified from being marked as above the quality of a typical article, when most of our articles don't even have sources for all their statements, and we've become known for things like that illustrated in the webcomic below?
Ah, now I understand. I've had similar problems with articles about fictional works - the people at FAC want more stuff about the work's place in the real world rather than just stuff about the fictional world and such information often isn't published anywhere. Such articles should be able to be featured. The policy says the featured article director should ignore complaints that can't be fixed - that policy should be followed and often isn't.
On 5/10/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
No, I mean articles like, say, [[Karamjit Singh]]. There aren't many (if any) sources about his personal life - where he was born, where he went
to
school, normal biographical stuff. So does this mean he should be
excluded
from consideration for things like GA because he can't fulfill the
normal
requirements of a biographical article?
I'm not talking about articles which don't have any sources at all. I'm talking about articles which can source all the existing statements
fine,
but can't be expanded because of lacunae in reliable sources. Should
these
articles thus be disqualified from being marked as above the quality of
a
typical article, when most of our articles don't even have sources for
all
their statements, and we've become known for things like that
illustrated in
the webcomic below?
Ah, now I understand. I've had similar problems with articles about fictional works - the people at FAC want more stuff about the work's place in the real world rather than just stuff about the fictional world and such information often isn't published anywhere. Such articles should be able to be featured. The policy says the featured article director should ignore complaints that can't be fixed - that policy should be followed and often isn't.
When I worked on FAC, I tried hard to work with articles that were about non-mainstream areas, such as video games, DJs, simply because these articles are not likely to have traditional sources, and will need to rely mostly upon web sources. It was a bit tough, and the editors often steamed off from my critiques, but when they listened and we worked together within the guidelines, Wikipedia got excellent articles in the popular culture arena.
The biggest problem with FAs about pop culture topics is not, imo, lack of sources, but getting the editors to understand the need to write something a mid-Western great grandmother could understand. When the editors do this, and they have sufficient sources for the particular article, something really worth seeing and reading on the front page comes up.
KP