[Foundation-l] "Vital Articles" underperforming?

[Alasdair]

I agree that the discussion about important topics is cruical - but it is important to read that whole thread to get a balanced view.  

The discussion from experienced contributors makes it very clear that:  

a) the analysis given in that presentation was hugely flawed and that;  
b) peer review on wikipedia has never been more thorough or comprehensive.

 I think any conversation about improving the important articles on wikipedia needs to proceed with acknowledgement of these facts (especially the second one). Its also indisputable that so far foundation initiatives aimed at improving content have at best produced mixed results (US Education program) and at worst been catastrophic disasters (India Education Program). Given this, it is clear that any future content initiatives should first gain a strong consensus from volunteer contributors.  

As a supplementary issue -  many editors have pointed out that the Vital articles "assessment" is an arbitrary and flawed metric of article importance. So it would be better if it is not used in discussions at present.
--  
Alasdair


On Sunday, 4 December 2011 at 17:04, rupert THURNER wrote:

> 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 (mailto: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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