[WikiEN-l] Expert feedback on Featured Articles

[Charles Matthews]

David Lindsey wrote:

<snip>


> Finally, though this idea failed to gain any real traction on wiki, I would
> like to state my support for the idea of adding a fifth criterion to
> WP:WIAFA: "5. The article, if possible, has been reviewed by an external
> subject-matter expert."  Even if no such criterion is added, though, I would
> like to emphasize that it will always, or nearly always, be productive to
> attempt to find an expert reviewer.
>   
It was interesting to see the Wertheim comments: they certainly appear 
fair, but none would seem to justify removing or holding up FA status. 
They are more like decent Talk page comments asking for clarifications.

I would oppose this suggestion, though, on "systemic bias" grounds. I 
know that it can be argued that a FA can be on any topic, but I guess 
standard "systemic bias" slants towards topics popular with 
English-speakers readers are fairly obvious when the list is sorted. 
There is no reason to add hurdles that basically are going to make that 
worse. (Again, it can be argued that it need not do that, as it can be 
argued that requiring images need not, requiring dense referencing need 
not, and so on. But collectively these requirements are part of a slant 
towards topics that are in certain areas.)

Charles