[WikiEN-l] The downside of creating perfect articles

[Steve Bennett]

On 1/25/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
> I will say, though, feedback has gotten to be the most frustrating
> experience I have.  My tendency of late has been to edit articles that few
> are interested in.  It took a really contentious FAC to get feedback on
> one FA I eventually finished up, and only because the three people who
> were so great to me during that process were great to me this time that
> another article I'm working on for FA has gotten any outside feedback.  I
> doubt it's just me, but if your areas of interest aren't in the
> mainstream, it's a constant struggle to even find someone to check your
> grammar, let alone improve something.

Yeah, I tend to be in obscure places too. Mostly because I start
articles when I see redlinks, so by definition if no one has created
an article in the 5+ years that Wikipedia has been going, it's going
to be fairly obscure.

> Peer review is fairly close to a waste,

Yeah, there are a few peer review systems and they don't seem to
operate well. Peer review for featured picture is another one.

>GA doesn't really review much of
> anything, and FAC is the only place I've ever gotten decent feedback from
> a group, and that's not what FAC is for.  Extremely frustrating.

Yeah, GA almost overnight turned from something useful into something
as bureaucratic as FA. Ultimately I guess feedback comes from large
numbers of people stumbling upon an article, and a lot more people
pass through FAC than other processes.

Often I don't even want proofing or feedback or whatever - but just
the occasional recognition that all the stubs or shortish articles
I've written are worth something. Or maybe I'm just gripey at people
who award dozens of barnstars for having a nice userpage while other
more constructive contributions get overlooked.

Steve