[Foundation-l] "Vital Articles" underperforming?

[rupert THURNER]

uh .. you are right ... sometimes one might wonder what
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Education_Program are for if
such basic articles stay in such a state. like one "professor for
information technology":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:United_States_Education_Program/Courses/Intro_to_Networks_(Xin_Xu)

for the article, what about starting with "information" and
"technology", and explaining the information pyramid with data -->
information --> knowledge, and associate with technology?
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_ladder
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology

and then there are others like:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_data_processing
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_processing

rupert

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 16:01, Andreas K. <jayen466 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There was a lengthy discussion recently on en:WP at
>
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#FAC_spends_too_much_time_on_trivial_topics
>
>
>
> about the fact that many featured articles – at least on en:WP – are about
> niche topics, while so-called "vital articles" (VA), i.e. core topics that
> any encyclopedia would be expected to cover well, are underperforming, with
> comparatively few making FA or GA. Looking at the VA list,
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VA
>
> topic areas like philosophy, languages and social sciences seem to be doing
> particularly poorly.
>
>
>
> Generally speaking, it stands to reason that articles on niche topics are
> easier to improve. One or two editors can work in relative peace and quiet,
> and the number of sources is more manageable. If there are only two dozen
> sources covering the topic, it's clear where to start; but where do you
> start with a topic like Information technology?
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology
>
>
> After ten years, it's still a start-class article in en:WP, little more
> than a stub really (though I note it is a featured article in Catalan
> Wikipedia).
>
>
> Do vital articles need a special approach to get them to FA standard,
> perhaps with Foundation-sponsored outreach to universities, formation of
> article improvement teams involving outside experts, and expert involvement
> in the FAC (featured article candidate) assessment process? Or do we trust
> that these articles will improve in time through the normal process of
> editing?
>
>
> What is VA quality like in other language versions of Wikipedia?
>
>
> Andreas
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