[WikiEN-l] UIC Journal: Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's feature[d] articles

[Charles Matthews]

Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 16 April 2010 16:38, Amory Meltzer <amorymeltzer at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Three were "on the fence" so while the article may report a 55%
>> success rate, it also is stating a 32% failure rate.
>>     
>
> It's hard to tell from their scoring system which the three borderline
> ones were, though.
>
> Interestingly, the seven "clear failures" exhibit a strong correlation
> between quality and time - the points get lower as they get older. For
> the other articles, there's little or no correlation between the time
> since they passed FAC (or FAR) and their quality.
>
> http://www.generalist.org.uk/blog/2010/quality-versus-age-of-wikipedias-featured-articles/
>
> I suspect this points up a problem with maintenance more than initial
> quality, but we shall see.
>
>   
Doesn't have to be a single-factor explanation: the goalposts are 
undoubtedly moved as far as quality at time of assessment is concerned; 
some writers of FAs will continue to work on them while others will 
devote time to other articles; some past FAs will be neglected because 
the editors mainly concerned are no longer around.

In terms of project management (not that we do any such thing) what 
conclusions to draw? We certainly have seen little cost-benefit analysis 
on the FA system as a whole.

Charles