[WikiEN-l] Expert feedback on Featured Articles

[Charles Matthews]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> On 27 April 2010 20:50, Charles Matthews
> <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>   
>> Nihiltres wrote:
>>     
>>> <snip>
>>>  I strongly believe that showing very prominently the level of review a given article—or even a given *revision* thereof—has received, and the perceived level of quality involved, is a good thing.  The Wikipedia 1.0 assessment system (Stub, Start, C, B, A, GA, FA…) seems to serve as a decent start for that sort of thing.
>>>       
>> If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that we really need
>> levels 1 to 10 for articles. It seems already to be hard to get an A,
>> fairly much impossible to get GA for an "average" topic, and as we know
>> only 1 in 1000 is FA (in round terms). And "expert review" = FA+ is
>> another quite defensible level. I think cutting to the chase, setting
>> substub = 1 and reviewed FA = 10 might be a great timesaver, and help a
>> process in which less "mystique" attached to the whole business.
>> Rebooting with FA = 9 sounds quite fun.
>>     
>
> I realised a few months ago that it had been ages since I'd actually
> done anything significant in the main namespace, so I decided to have
> a go at writing an article. With a little help from someone that
> turned up and started improving the article (in true wiki-fashion), I
> got it to GA fairly easily. It was at best an "average" topic - it was
> my local (about 700 year old) church. FAC is very difficult to get
> through, but GA is entirely doable.
>
> I think adding more levels would make the distinctions more arbitrary,
> which seems like a bad thing to me. I think we should remove a level,
> in fact. The current system at the top with A, GA and FA is very
> confusing. I think GA and A should be merged somehow (perhaps just get
> rid of A).
>
>   
Well, the research I remember says the transition from B to A makes the 
most difference to the reader. So I would make that central to any 
system: from 5 to 6, say. I have seen perfectly decent articles labelled 
"Start" - I mean articles with say five paras of solid, verifiable 
factual information. I doubt standards are even across the wiki, but if 
those are "Start" there have to be a couple of rungs on the ladder below 
that.; or Start = 3.  I see that mathematics uses B+ anyway, so that the 
lower side has five grades already. There does seem to be some problem 
with A right now, but abolishing it in such a fashion to reduce 
incentives to push articles up would really be a bad idea (whatever your 
anecdotal example says).

Charles