-----Original Message----- From: Anthony DiPierro [mailto:wikispam@inbox.org] Sent: 11 October 2005 4:00 AM To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Article quality deterioration (was: a valid

criticism)

I'd rather see a radical expansion of the the featured articles system.

Instead of nominating an article, you'd nominate a version of an article. The standards would be radically lessened from the current featured article

standard, of course. As long as an article was well structured, had

adequate

references, lacked non-free images, was NPOV, etc., it'd pass. No

requirement that the article actually be one of "the best", just that it be

acceptable for a static/semi-static copy (think CD/DVD distro).

Even if an article failed this process, it'd produce a list of what

needed to be fixed.

I've thought for a long time that there should be some way of recognising the many, many articles that are pretty good but would probably never make the grade as an FA, due to being too short, too broad, too narrow or whatever. 99.9% of our articles are not featured, but surely at least 10% are pretty good, have images, references, are neutral and so on.

However, I think lowering FA standards would be very bad. We should be identifying the very best we have to offer, while also identifying the less spectacular good stuff. So, I have just started Wikipedia:Good articles, which is my idea for how our good but not the best content can be recognised. All comments welcome of course.

WT