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Memory Alpha talk:Featured article nomination policy

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[edit] Waiting period

What do you guys think about the waiting period for nominations? On one hand, I think it should be a bit longer than the VfD period that we're used to (just the five days), since we want to spend some time really considering whether an article should be featured or not. But OTOH, all (or most) of the regular participants have been responding within five days or so, so we don't necessarily need more time than that... Thoughts? -- Dan Carlson 20:02, 9 Jun 2004 (CEST)

If there´s no arguments against an article becomming featured within 5 days... maybe, but I´d go with 10 just to be sure. If there´s a discussion about an article, I´d suggest keeping the discussion untill it´s obvious whether it should be featured or not. But I don´t think such a discussion should take more than 30 days. -- Redge 20:18, 9 Jun 2004 (CEST)

I would suggest a week (7 days) for a featured article to be accepted. Ottens 20:22, 9 Jun 2004 (CEST)

Redge: That's why I put in that line about a featured article requiring that someone second it before it can be accepted. It prevents people from just sliding articles on through when people neglect the page. -- Dan Carlson 20:31, 9 Jun 2004 (CEST)

In that case I agree: 7 days to nominate, 10 days before archiving. If an entry's archived, it can still be renominated. -- Redge 19:35, 26 Jun 2004 (CEST)

Woah, hold on there Redge! You shouldn't have moved the nominations without some sort of consensus about changing them first! Even if I agree with you, I think you should have waited. (Maybe that's just my ego talking, but I mention this in fairness to other people as well...) However, I do agree that the 7/10-day schedule is probably good.
There's one thing we need to do, is clear up the policy on renominations. That's because I'm already sorely annoyed that my article on the doomsday machine got rejected based on one vote, and that one vote wasn't questioning the quality of the article, but the appropriate placement!
Do we want to require unanimous votes for achieving featured article status? Or should we allow some leeway... say, require 75% or a two-thirds majority and still allow the article to be featured? Considering that some people might post comments about features and then disappear (thus making an argument or a consensus impossible) -- this happened with K's comment about the doomsday machine article -- I think it would be a good idea. -- Dan Carlson 20:19, 26 Jun 2004 (CEST)

Sorry, I get a little carried away at times, and if there's one thing I can't stand than it's cluttered up and disorganised pages. I do suggest we leave the moved discussions in the archive for now.

How about this for policy: If an objection is raised, and any member posts arguments against those objections, the person who posted the objections has 10 days to reply, otherwise, if there are no further objections, the article is featured. -- Redge 20:53, 26 Jun 2004 (CEST)

And in the event that there are two groups, of which the minority votes not to nominate, and the majority votes to nominate, I would still not nominate it. Not unless the unlikely situation in which one user sticks to his objections and all other members disagree. -- Redge 20:59, 26 Jun 2004 (CEST)

Hmm, that sounds overly complicated. How about simply not allowing an article to be nominated more than twice without a major rewrite? To use my doomsday machine article as an example, under this policy the article could be immediately renominated after it was rejected, but if it got rejected a second time, then someone would have to go back and make major changes to it (or move it, or whatever) before it could be nominated for a third time. Does that sound reasonable? (I'm trying to avoid my conflict of interest here... my rationalization is that this kind of policy would be fair to avoid the kind of hit-and-run rejections that are bound to crop up from time to time.) -- Dan Carlson 21:07, 26 Jun 2004 (CEST)

Well, at the very least I would suggest a minor rewrite to correct the problem people had with it (unless of course those objections were wrong, as is the case with Doomsday machine, and the poster doesn't clarify them further). This would mean that when an article is nominated and objections arize:

  1. Discussion is opened if other people don't agree with the objections.
  2. If no consensus is reached in 10 days, the discussion is archived (should improve readability), unless the poster of the first objection doesn't clarify his objections further.
  3. A minor rewrite is done to accomodate for the objections, and the article is renominated (but we keep the original discussion archived).
  4. Same procedure is followed, but after this second failed nomination, a major rewrite is requiered.

I don't think we should be to light on the nomination policy. After all, once an article is nominated, it is probably never un-nominated. The nomination is permanent, and if the article is to be featured, there can't be room for discussion (IMO). -- Redge 21:31, 26 Jun 2004 (CEST)

PS. I agree that Doomsday machine should have been nominated, but I also feel we can't really nominate it untill some sonsensus is reached. And after all this time, if K wasn't going to respond, it would be just easier to renominate.

I'm going to put together a full policy on a separate page, and combine all these ideas together. Also, concerning de-listing, Wikipedia has some rules for de-listing featured articles if they're contested after the fact. I figure that we'll adopt them if and when they're necessary. -- Dan Carlson 21:56, 26 Jun 2004 (CEST)
I feel that I should apologize. I didn't feel that a response was necessary. Regarding the Doomsday article, my suggestion is really more sematic and editorial, and not a critique of the content. I still stand by my original comment. However, as I have said before, this article is well-written, and I enjoyed reading it. In this regard, it would make a fine Featured article. --K 09:07, 27 Jun 2004 (CEST)

Untill that time, where should we contenst? I figure the Talk page of the featured article is good enough (no need to hassel).

By the way, do we have a messages stating that an article isfeatured? If we don't, we should make one and put it either at the bottom of the featured articles, or on their talk pages. Anyway, I look forward to reading the pollicy tomorrow! -- Redge 22:21, 26 Jun 2004 (CEST)

My comliments on creating a very clear policy, and so quick! I have nothing further to add. -- Redge 14:38, 27 Jun 2004 (CEST)

Thanks, Redge! :-) Regarding the notice, we do have the Template:Featured template that can be used.
K, thanks for speaking up now. I understand what you were thinking, but just to clarify what I said before, I think that it would be useful to join a conversation more after posting, even if it's to continue a disagreement. That way, it's more likely that we can hammer out a consensus that everyone's happy with. -- Dan Carlson 16:47, 27 Jun 2004 (CEST)

[edit] Frivolous nominations

I noticed under the section on removal of featured status the statement: "Frivolous nominations for removal may be deleted by the administrators without notice." Does this also apply to candidates for featured status as well. Currently there are five (out of the present eleven) articles nominated by the same individual (Tobyk777). Can we impliment some sort of limitation of nominations per person per week/10 days that a person can nominate an article, similar to the policy we have regarding too many self-nomiations? --Alan del Beccio 04:41, 11 Aug 2005 (UTC)

  • ALso like to note he has 2 self nominatiosn also running at the same time, i would like to recomend only 1 self nomination at a time and a limit to only 2 nominations at a time by somone--Kahless 04:46, 11 Aug 2005 (UTC)
  • Can we get some more input on this, and the below, suggestion? Or should I move this to Memory_Alpha talk:Nominations_for_featured_articles? --Alan del Beccio 22:45, 19 Aug 2005 (UTC)
  • I think Kahless is on the right lines. I think that each member should be entitled to a maximum of one self-nomination and two other nominations until the ten-day waiting period is over as well.--Scimitar 00:39, 20 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Seems this issue has reared its ugly head once again. Four out of 5 of this users (Tobyk777) current nominations are opposed due to being incomplete, and clearly have been nominated on a whim rather than because they are considered true contendors. --Alan del Beccio 06:29, 24 Aug 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unreasonable objections

We currently have a case where a voted opposed a nomination for a character (Tuvix) because they did not like the episode ("Tuvix") and thought that the article should not be featured because of that, and because it was inferior to another article (Jean-Luc Picard), which is heavily opposed, due to the fact that it is agreeably incomplete.

Currently our policy does not support any means of overriding this vote. As current states: "Votes for featured article candidates must be unanimous, or all objections must be resolved or withdrawn, before the nomination can be accepted and the article listed on the Featured Articles page." If this user continues to support his vote with the fact that he disliked the episode, then his objection will most likely go unchanged and therefore unresolved.

However, since our guidelines do note that the voter must: "Justify your objections. Don't just say you're opposed to the article being featured without giving a reason why you don't think the article should be featured. After all, without some sort of valid, actionable feedback, how can the article improve?" And since his explaination stated "Object, he only appeared in one episode, and not even a good one, how can you object to Picard and support this guy." ... does this lack of justification qualify as a means to void the vote? Is there any way we can expand on our policies on circumventing ignorant voters -- versus ones who have firmly established/supported objections? --Alan del Beccio 04:41, 11 Aug 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree that some sort of rule or guideline should be placed where a user has to justify their objection with a "legitimate" reason. As you have already said, the episode on which any article is based shouldn't affect what you think of the article itself and neither should the number of episodes in which an article features nor whether or not you liked the episode. On such a basis, quite a few featured articles would be opposed. Harrad-Sar's ship only appeared in one episode of ENT and the episode wasn't the strongest but the article has great content and to me it's one of MA's best pieces of work but I don't think its single appearance in any way affects its worthiness of being featured. On the same account, I think that the article on William T Riker is possibly MA's best article but if someone opposed its nomination for saying something like "He's got a beard", I don't think that should be counted as a valid objection.--Scimitar 09:50, 11 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    • Maybe we should add a clause which states that to object, there must be a concrete reason. We should also note that frivolous objections, such as those based on a personal dislike for a subject or conflict with another editor, will not be considered and may be disregarded by the community on a case-by-case basis. And as much as I hate to see more bureaucracy and complication added to Memory Alpha, I think we might need to consider reviewing our current policies, most of which haven't been seriously amended since the wiki began. Since then, we've learned a lot about what does work and what doesn't work. And as we continue to grow, we may also need develop policies for arbitration and the like. -- SmokeDetector47 // talk 06:03, 24 Aug 2005 (UTC)
      • To question this: Does the objection "it seems to be somehow lacking" followed by a vague statement that a certain section could be expanded without saying how or what is missing, qualify as a concrete reason? This was the bulk of the objections to the Ferengi article. Whereas the Nog article has very specific objections: Reads like a timeline, no info on Klingons, lack of ton of content on Jake relationship; the Ferengi article objections seemed like thinly veiled objections based on dislike for the Ferengi in general, not the article. How do we tell the difference? Logan 5 21:22, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
    • In relation to the discussion below about criteria. I think it's going to be hard to agree on some concrete criteria on such a subjective issue. Factually incorrect objections do, I think, invalidate a vote. And while each of us may give less consideration to an oppose vote that just says "it sucks" there's no way we're going to agree on what invalidates a vote and what doesn't. Smeone who supports an article isn't likely to be swayed by an oppose and if given their druthers they'd likely override the oppose just because they don't agree with it. Frankly, if a nomination is so on the fence that a "it sucks" objection is the tie-breaker it probably doesn't need to be an FA; nor does an article that gets such limited response/interest for its nomination that the preponderence of votes are those with lame objections. Logan 5 18:41, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Limit to number of self-nominations

IN the "Force of Nature" discussion, an archivist has pointed out that a number of the episode pages (and other pages too) are featured, but with serious problems like poor grammar, lack of any correctly placed background information, and the like.

It seems to be the same 5 or 10 users that continuously discuss featured status and work on the articles -- could the quality of those being chosen be that we are simply seeing the same few users spotlighting their own work, and having the few regular featured article contributors rate it.

Perhaps there should be a limit to self nomination -- to give our dozens of other archivists a chance to actually have some of their work featured here, rather that the regular crew.

Should there be a requirement that another user or group of users should have worked on an article within a certain amount of time of a self-nomination? Or perhaps increase the number of votes needed to make an article featured, in order to find a way to give more users a voice in the discussion? -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 14:34, 13 Jul 2005 (UTC)

I'm wary of placing any sort of restrictions on "self-nomination" or creating some sort of scale to judge how many contributors need to work on an article before it can be featured... that seems like excessive bureaucracy and against the spirit of Memory Alpha. Everything we have is equally owned by all contributors. Furthermore, there is no one keeping the users outside any perceived group from voting or nominating their own work. That said, I do think we need to encourage more user voting for not only featureds, but deletions and other procedures which require a vote... it does seem as if there is only a small number of users voting on these pages. Perhaps requiring 2-3 votes to make a featured article would help, but we also need to find a way to pull in other contributors who perhaps have not taken part in the voting process yet. -- SmokeDetector47 // talk 02:07, 14 Jul 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "...community's work..."

(copied from: Category talk:Memory Alpha featured articles; inserted here as a subdiscussion of the Self-nomination discussion) -- Cid Highwind

"We believe it to be one of the best examples of the Memory Alpha community's work."

I read this, curiously, on our Featured Article boiler plate. It's seemed to me, that maybe 8 times out of 10, when an article is nominated, it's a self nomination, and they are the main contributor to that article. Self nominations are fine, that's not my problem; but I think we should have a place, maybe even on the main page, where we list maybe three articles that "could" be featured articles, and encourage everyone in our community to work on them. Then when we think their done, we can put'm up to a final vote, et. Anyone on my wave length? (PS: If this isn't in the right talk page, which I'm not entirely sure it is, higher-up feel free to move it) - AJHalliwell 07:48, 15 Jul 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea! There are loads of articles which are good, but need some improvements before they become featured, for example Data and Lwaxana Troi. zsingaya 08:55, 15 Jul 2005 (UTC)
This has been suggested before on Ten Forward, as some sort of "peer review". This could be a good idea (maybe even make that step mandatory to avoid the problems outlined above), but it needs to be specified further: How do we choose these pages (suggestion/vote, I guess, maybe with some limits put in place)? How do we determine if a page has been reviewed "enough"? Any ideas? -- Cid Highwind 09:05, 15 Jul 2005 (UTC)
We could have a "counter" system, like on the Admin nominations page, where there's a number supporting, against and neutral for each article suggested. Probably 5 supports without an against would be adequate. Any opposed comments would need to be resolved before it became featured, as in the Guinan talk page. zsingaya 09:10, 15 Jul 2005 (UTC)
But that would be the step of actually nominating an article for featured status, just as we have it right now, wouldn't it? If I understand AJHalliwell correctly, the "peer review" would be a step before that:
  1. Article gets nominated for "peer review" (How?)
  2. Community chooses, so that X articles are up for peer review at any time (How?)
  3. Community decides if peer review was successful (How?)
  4. If it was, article gets nominated for featured status
  5. Community decides if article deserves featured status
Eventually, steps 3-5 could be combined by automatically nominating for featured after article has been under review for some time (1 week? more? less?). -- Cid Highwind 09:17, 15 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Glad people are into the idea; we could have a vote for say, 3-5 articles that "could" be featured articles (like we have a bar of Unwritten topics on the main page) Then for a week, those are shown, and edited, and upgraded, and when it's felt it has met Featured Article qualifications, we'd put it on the Featured article nominations page (in case anyone still has problems with it). Then if no problems, featured. We could have a suggestion page to select the 3-5 articles (like there is for Article of the Week, only encourage voting on it) Personally, it seems like all the main characters could be featured, with how much info there is on them, they just haven't been finished and polished and shined. - AJHalliwell 21:45, 15 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of articles written by a single user, could we get some community work on Occupation of Bajor? :P I might have to just add TNG information based on the script at this rate. --Schrei 20:18, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Could we get some more opinions on this suggestion? The more I think about it, the more I like this idea of a mandatory peer review phase. Please also see Wikipedia's path to a featured article. -- Cid Highwind 13:28, 20 Sep 2005 (EDT)
I think a peer review area is a good idea. In my mind I would imagine two ways an article would get put on peer review: One, an article that had a chance to be major and just needed attention. In that instance it would be tagged with a peer review template (which would have to be created) and would be very similar to the pna templates we have now so that there would be a central page where you could see all in this category. If an article was on peer review for a week, maybe two, and had no significant work it would need to be removed. Two, articles that are nominated as FAs but have objections based on incompleteness or organization. Those articles would go through the usual vote process but a number of objections (say two or three) citing editable corrections, would get moved to Peer Review instead of just being taken off the FA candidate list. Then the same process kicks in, no major edits after two weeks and it gets removed and back into general MA.
I don't think peer review should be a necessary condition for FAs as not all will need it and I think the general voting process is already a review. But Peer Review for articles needing improvement (Jadzia Dax, Vorta, and Odo stand out as a few) and articles nominated but needing revision (such as Nog, which had several objections that have resulted in a much better article, IMO), would be great ideas. Logan 5 14:02, 20 Sep 2005 (EDT)
Pages "needing attention" are pages with specific problems, whereas "peer review" would be a way to turn an already good article into a great one - so we shouldn't confuse those two. These semantics aside, I don't really understand your reasons for objections to a mandatory "peer review" phase for FA nominees, if the nomination phase already behaves as such (which, sadly, it didn't do in the past). Could you explain your objection a little?
Of course, we'd still have to define some related rules. Again, I think the Wikipedia model is a good one... -- Cid Highwind 14:55, 20 Sep 2005 (EDT)
It's not really an objection, per se. But if someone nominates an FA and it gets 4-5 support votes with no serious objections, what would be the purpose and process for undergoing a peer review when it's already been reviewed and approved by voters? At that point it would seem like adding a layer of beuracracy that wouldn't really be needed. But for articles with objections a peer review would be ideal. That's what I was confused about.
As for the pna vs. peer review: I get you, I was just thinking that using peer review for some articles that are already labeled pna might be a good way to focus people on articles with tremendous potential, as opposed to articles that are pna, but even at their height may not be FA candidates. Logan 5 19:15, 20 Sep 2005 (UTC)
OK, how about at least "encouraging" putting an article up for peer review before nominating it? That way, it would be an optional step that would most probably avoid some of the issues otherwise brought up in the nomination phase. -- Cid Highwind 06:38, 21 Sep 2005 (EDT)
I think it should definitely be encouraged, and I think for re-nominated and self-nominated articles it should be required. Logan 5 17:58, 21 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I don't think I paid attention to this before, mostly because I assumed it was about the problem of self-nominations. But after reading the discussion, I strongly encourage a formal peer review process. It would make things simpler, ie the issues with Nog and Rotarran pictures, the relay station sounding like a summary, etc... I'm not even going to mention the episode issues. --Schrei 18:11, 21 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I created the page Memory Alpha:Peer review and added a link to both of my policy suggestions (see last section of this talk page). Let me know what you think. -- Cid Highwind 23:12, 21 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On the Future of Featured Articles

As I'm reading some users' comments on featured article nominations, I realized I am not alone in the following concern. In my opinion, the number of featured articles is becoming to high. Especially with users writing up excellent episode summeries lately, in number of FA is increasing now faster than ever. (Memory Alpha is becoming too good.) Lately, it seems as if an article receiving "featured" status is merely the last step in the progress of writing an article.

Still, though, many pages that are "featured" are not 100% complete. That is not required, of course, but it appears there are levels of featured articles: those that are "good" and those that are "excellent". For example, the Intrepid-class page is a good article, while the Constitution-class page is arguably better, featuring far more extended information and a detailed "Background information" section.

Thus, I suggest the following option: keep the "Featured Articles" as it is, and create a category of articles only for those that are 100% complete. The standard for these would be much higher than that of normal FA -- such articles would have to be perfect and complete in every sense. Ottens 11:26, 6 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I, too, think that the number of featured articles ist becoming too high, and the whole process (included featured nominations, feature removal nominations and probably also the "Article of the week" feature) needs to be discussed. However, I don't think that we need another class of articles "better than featured" - first, "featured articles" right now are defined as "MA's best works", and second, it would be very hard, if not impossible, to determine if an article really is "100% complete and perfect".
I agree with some of the suggestions made above and on other related discussion pages, and will suggest some more later. -- Cid Highwind 14:21, 6 Sep 2005 (UTC)
My suggestion: User:Cid Highwind/Featured article procedure -- Cid Highwind 21:55, 8 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Ping... :) Any further comments regarding any of the above? -- Cid Highwind 11:27, 14 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Well, I've read it and I am not sure if changing the way of voting would create a better FA. I don't see the number of FA's as a problem as long as they deserve the FA 'stamp', no matter if they are just episode summaries or not. I think the policies that exist needs to be enforced better or extented. For example there is still no formal policy on tense, most dictionary like articles are past tense and everyone seems to agree, although there is no policy on it, but most episodes are present tense, sometimes past. episode summaries are rejected or even marked "needs work" if the tense differs. If FA status needs to reflect the best MA has to offer maby its time to start all over again (speaking of radical) and strip all articles from their FA status. You might consider that articles need a minimum number of votes to become a FA and even extent the voting period, so everyone has some time to go over the article with a fine comb and check facts, grammer, citations, spelling etc. Personally I think that language is also a problem. Not everyone is fluent in English writing, nor are some native English speaking people here but who am I to correct them, but articles are not always checked by people who know how to correctly write English before it's get the FA stamp. So articles might slip through. Maby you can limit the time an article can be FA ? In the end, when everything is told about StarTrek, all articles should be off FA quality. -- Q 13:34, 14 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Too much FA's? Why? Count this - they don't complain. --Porthos 15:39, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article criteria

(from Ten Forward) I just saw someone opposed my nomination of "Crossover" on the basis that it is an episode... If this is the case, let's make episode summaries inelligible. They don't take any effort anyway. I suggest we remove all featured episode articles. Coke 06:39, 14 Sep 2005 (UTC)

IMO, this kind of incident really shows what a disaster this website has become, in regard to featured articles. I am frequently appalled by the ignorance apparent in statements such as episode articles require no work! A well-written episode write-up takes as much effort - or more - than any other kind of article. I seriously cannot understand how some people can so undermine the energy that it takes to CREATE an episode article. The fact that a user creates the page - not simply copies information from somewhere else - is an obvious indication that it takes work. It can be difficult to create a well-written episode article and look for appropriate images, it's just a shame that not everyone understands that! --Defiant | Talk 00:57, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Defiant is _“*THE*”_ expert about writing episodesummaries. We should differ to the judgment of Defiant about this issue. I for one believe that a well written episodesummary can qualify as a featured article --— Ŭalabio‽ 02:37, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I think removing and making them ineligible is a bit extensive. It wasn't voted down because it was an episode, and it may be voted featured in the future; it's just that over the past month or so, a bunch of articles have been fast-paced into FA status, to the point where before users vote they don't seem to read them, they just look at how long they are, and say "OH! This is a Defiant-class article! (a name I coined to describe the pain-stakingly done, 'well written articles Defiant has created, that other user's attempt to achieve.) It must be great, its more then 34 KB." - AJHalliwell 02:47, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Maybe it is time to raise the bar, so to speak, for FA nominees, not only content, but grammer should be scrutinized. Some people support a nomimee but still write that it lacks something but they don't know what, and some vote neutral. I think that support votes with reservations should be autmatically be converted to object, as do neutral votes. (neutral or comments should be placed on the articles talk page as far as I am concerned) -- Q 18:05, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Response to Logan 5's objections to Crossover

I was the one who first voted against Crossover for basically the reasons AJ recaps. It's not that I think episodes shouldn't be FAs, it's just that there have been a lot of them lately (or so it seems) while material that could be great featured articles with some community effort (see: Nog, Tekheny Ghemor, plus a ton of planets, species, or events) tend to sit by the side. It's not that episodes are easy, but by definition you only have to watch one episode to do the summary. Characters and other articles often require that multiple different episodes be viewed. I think that by not featuring so many episodes right now we might be able to encourage users to look at those kinds of articles instead. Logan 5 03:05, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)

In all fairness, the rationale you used flies in the face of what AJ just said about it not being opposed for being an episode. I agree wholeheartedly about there being too many episodes, and I think I'm indirectly to blame because, while I genuinely believe the ones I nominated - "The Jem'Hadar", "Tribunal", "The Wire", and "Prototype" - genuinely deserved it, the others were mostly written by me. That said, I would appreciate it if you opposed based on the quality rather than simply saying there are too many featured episodes and therefore you oppose it. I agree that one should actually read the article before supporting it, but on the flip side, one should read it before opposing as well. See Talk:Tribunal (episode) for Smoke Detector's very constructive criticism of that article. --Schrei 14:34, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Well, I did read it. And while I can see how it seems contradictory, to my mind my opposition or support is not based solely on quality. Just as it is not based solely on whether or not an article is complete. There are a lot of things that go into supporting an article or not based on user preference. For instance, I don't personally believe that the Ferengi article nomination has been rejected because of quality - many users said it was well written even as they opposed it, and it's more complete and thorough than a lot that have been FAs. So we can only conclude that there are preferences at work other than quality or completeness. Episodes can be and are worthy of being an FA, but my preference is not to see another episode be an FA so soon so I vote oppose. I just don't think it's black or white, it's a subjective thing. I also don't believe that submitting something to a vote (viz: a subjective choice), and implying a vote that isn't factually contradicted is in some other way invalid, is a fair standard for evaluating the outcome of the vote. Unless the user objects on the basis of something incorrect, such as saying information is missing when it is in fact not, then whatever reasons are there should be accepted. Either way, it's the yes or no that counts. Logan 5 18:36, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I agree about the subjectivity, which is why I pointed it out on the nomination page previously. But, and maybe I'm partial to this episode because I wrote the summary, I think it's silly to oppose an article based on current events instead of its own merits. Even if it's a subjective reason like "this article just doesn't stand out," I'd rather have you oppose it based on something - anything, really - that has to do with this particular article. That's what I was getting at when I said it should be judged on quality, which I was using as an all-encompassing word for the work that went into the article. --Schrei 20:00, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Here's the thing, I can come up with a more detailed explanation of why I oppose it (and just did on the nomination page). But even if I explain more fully, it still boils down to not wanting to see another episode article be an FA. Is the reason any less invalid because it's detailed? Or if it still equals opposing it for being an episode then how does it change if I'm more detailed. I don't think it adds as much to MA as a featured article should; it doesn't expand the Mirror Universe knowledge, it doesn't tie in other relavent material or episodes, it's a rewrite of the episode, even if it's a long one. I think those problems are more prevalent in episode articles than others, and I can sum them all up by saying I oppose another episode article but that would be invalidated. So if I think most episodes have those same problems opposing on these ground equals opposing it because it is an episode, does that mean I can't oppose any episode nominations? The problem is being more specific for opposing it doesn't change the underlying reasons. I personally think the opposition to the most recent Ferengi article was unwarranted, and the most specific opposition was a vague recommendation that there should be more cultural info, when, in fact, I don't think there's much left to add. The underlying reason there was that the voter just didn't like it, or didn't quite feel it was worthy, but tacking on that justification for their opposition doesnt' really do anything to make their personal reasons more objective any more than my detailed reason for opposing an article changes the underlying reason I'm opposed to it.Logan 5 21:02, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal made of clay

Since there is such a great division between articles and episode summaries, is there not some way we can create two featured article categories, one for the so-called "meta-Trek" subjects...like actors and episodes and leave the classic "featured article" status to what M/A is truely about -- the Star Trek universe?

I think the overall concern with episode summaries is that every single one can, and probably will, be "featured" -- or, at least, "completed to an acceptable standard". Frankly...that's going to overwhelm and possibly overrun the ratio of so-called "meta-Trek" to "Trek universe" featured articles in M/A.

The same cannot be said about every other "Trek universe", non-episode, non-main character or main starship article written on M/A. It takes great care, creativity and above all, research and cross-referencing to make an article that is two sentences long in the Star Trek Encyclopedia into a featured article on M/A. So clearly, there is a distinction, and a certain limitation, between the near certainty of writing a featured-episode article and writing a person/place/thing/event article -- which, should be noted, fall under much harsher scrutiny.

With that said, I would like to propose to create a subcategory: {{featured-episode}}, to divide the two, and establish that distinction. That way we can give episodes/authors their fair share of exposure, and as well, establish a list of episode summaries that we feel are better than 90% complete. Hopefully, with that, we would not face having "too many featured episode articles being nominated", as the "meta-Trek"/episodes could be siphoned into the subcategory without smothering the "Trek universe" articles, while at the same time giving both an equal billing. Thoughts? --Alan del Beccio 21:17, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Support
There's another thing that should be discussed: some of the FA Eps have become so huge that the heading "summary" is just inappropriate - if the whole script is simply copied into them, they would not be longer/have more words. So we have to divide articles like "In a Mirror, Darkly" (which get a heading "content") and those like "Yesterday's Enterprise" that have a real summary (short, no "acts") and keep this heading. There should be some rules for both sorts of episode articles. --Memory 23:00, 15 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I support this idea as well. It will clear up a lot of ambiguity with both episode and actor articles. However, I don't know about further separating the articles. That seems like too much, because the level of depth is really a matter of personal style. If "In a Mirror, Darkly" is at the overboard end of the spectrum, then "Call to Arms" is at the minimalist end. Both are good episode summaries using the five-act format, and both give the user a good idea of what happens in the episode. The extra length is really just bulk (for lack of a better word). --Schrei 02:56, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. While this idea seems to have its merits at first, I think it wouldn't help in the long run. First, if we create a subcategory just for episode articles, we are basically saying "this article has no place on our featured article list". This is no different than simply defining episode articles as ineligible, as was suggested somewhere else. Seperating all meta articles that way may be a good idea, though.
Second, the idea that "every single episode article will probably be featured" sounds just wrong to me. "Featured articles" are defined as the "most thoughtful, comprehensive, and informative articles that Memory Alpha has to offer", articles that "are particularly comprehensive and well-written" or are "especially well-written, informative, and comprehensive [...] that covers all available information on a subject". Obviously, not every article can, or even should, be the best of the best. We have to work on that somehow... -- Cid Highwind 12:36, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Disagree As I see it, the problem is not that episodes are promoted to FA but it's the amount of episodes that reached it with respect to other articles about 'tech stuff', persons etc. If the amount of FA episodes are the problem I would suggest that episode nominations need to be supported by four or more votes and that one cannot nominate an episode that you started. An alternative would be that at least x-amount of archivist needed to be active in its creation, that way an FA would be the effort of the community and not a single person. Personally I don't have a problem with the amount of FA episodes and making a seperate category only for episodes and the rest of the FA articles is a bad idea. Like Cid says, you might create FA categories like, episodes, person, events, technology etc.. not only for episodes. The way for now is to scrutinize every article which is nominated and stop being 'nice guys' (up to a point of course) and be more critical about them. I must say it can be done, look at the nomination of Nog and wormhole relay station, in just a few days they are being reworked and certainly are almost FA ready. (to bad that they first needed to be nominated to get so much work done on them) -- Q 17:41, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point Gv was making... He wants to separate all things that are meta/production/whatever, and while it's true summaries are told from the in-universe perspective, they definitely land on the meta side of the line. And I think having a certain number of votes is a great idea, with one minor detail: It needs to be that way for all articles.
However, disqualifying self-nominations is not the way to go. It would make people afraid to contribute to an article they want to nominate out of fear they could no longer nominate it. Limiting it to one self-nomination at a time is a perfect middle ground, I think; between that and requiring a certain number of votes, there would be no problem with the process. Remember that part of the problem is people who simply comment on issues they might have with the article yet are afraid to wield the oppose vote.
To Cid's comment about not every page having potential, I strongly disagree. Every episode page has the potential to be "Defiant class" or whatever label you want to apply to it. That's why meta and in-universe categories would be appropriate: to address the legitimate concerns people have about featured episode articles drowning out the other potential FAs, because while I agree with this opinion, as I said above I think it's inappropriate to disqualify an article based on current events and MA politics that had nothing to do with the article itself. --Schrei 18:25, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
That's not what I was saying. Of course many pages (not all, I think) have the potential to become "one of the best". It just should be obvious that they can't all be "one of the best" at the same time. There's no sense in "featuring" any article if we are featuring all of them at the same time. Whether we are talking about "featured episode articles" or all featured articles - as long as a featured article is defined as "most informative" and "especially well-written", the number of featured articles shouldn't be more than a small percentage of all existing articles. -- Cid Highwind 21:36, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I see your point now, sorry about that. I guess when I hear the best of the best I just think of it in terms of trying to make all of MA the best of the best. The episode summaries are almost like a project that can be gauged on how complete it is, at least to me. The only problem with that logic is the definition of complete. :) --Schrei 22:35, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I would wholly support this idea. Episodes deserve attention, my objection is in thinking that an episode that simply restates the action on screen without adding to overall knowledge, and touching on other relevant areas, is in a different class than an article that covers multiple episodes (or multiple series). Moreover, I think articles are also different in that they even after they are completed there's a question to how much has been added to MA by virtue of a blow-by-blow recap of the final cut. Logan 5 00:22, 17 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Oppose this idea based on my suggestion below on the comments section of Cid's propsal. We don't need to go through all this trouble when we could cure the problem ourselves and avoid controversy. --Schrei 02:17, 19 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suspend nominations?

With the whole policy being under discussion, the fact that we momentarily don't agree on what exactly makes an article "good enough to be featured", which reasons to object are or aren't valid etc., should we suspend all new nominations for the moment? I suggest to "freeze" the nomination page by protecting it, and only unprotect it after we have come to an agreement here. Let's vote here, simple consensus, all votes 'til 00:00, 20 Sep count. -- Cid Highwind 22:42, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Votes

(Yes=Suspend; No=Don't suspend)

  • Yes. -- Cid Highwind 22:42, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes. Logan 5 00:08, 17 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes. Schrei 15:23, 17 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • No. --Defiant | Talk 17:25, 18 Sep 2005 (UTC)
  • No. (see below) --Schrei 02:15, 19 Sep 2005 (UTC)

(Closed, no consensus for suggestion)

[edit] Comments

I think we need to review our policy of unanimous votes being required as well. Given MA's growth lately, I think maybe "overwhelming majority" or "consensus" would be a better word. As I mentioned on the nominations page, Wikipedia with it's immense user base wouldn't survive a day on unanimous votes - this is just one of those growing pains. --Schrei 15:25, 17 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Agree, unanimity beyond 3-4 votes seems increasingly unlikely unless people start witholding their vote so as not to scuttle nominations, which I think some are already doing. If we had a large majority, or consensus, I think we'd actually end up setting the bar higher by encouraging more votes. Logan 5 01:05, 19 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we need to suspend nominations, establish formal critera, split categories, draw sticks, pick a number, ask the magic eight ball, or anything so complicated. There didn't seem to be a problem before the novelization fad came along. As I explained on Talk:These Are the Voyages... (episode), we could cure 90% of the problem if we wrote actual summaries and started focusing on encyclopedic articles. The current featured ones can stay as they are, but the concept of featuring episodes should probably be phased out IMHO. It would go a long way toward giving the spotlight back to articles that need the spotlight.

Not that it matters, but I had this epiphany when I realized I never read my own work or anyone elses on most episode pages due to the fact that it's boring to read. Although most people probably won't admit it, I don't think anyone truly reads these things all the way through. --Schrei 02:15, 19 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Fact is that, whether you think this is necessary or not, this has become so complicated - and not only because of the episode article nominations. There were concerns about other parts of the nomination procedure before. Changing the running system would be possible, of course, but halting it for the moment would be so much easier. And for the record, I'm absolutely against making it even easier to nominate new articles, unless we are setting up some other rules/regulations at the same time. But this shouldn't be discussed in this comment section, I guess. -- Cid Highwind 11:34, 19 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I still am highly in favor of separating Trek universe articles (eg. D'deridex-class) from Meta-Trek articles (eg. "The Jem'Hadar") and should be divided by pov just as much as the "background" section is divided from the main text of any Trek universe-based article written here. --Alan del Beccio 17:31, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Policy draft regarding "Featured article criteria"

Please visit Memory Alpha:Featured article criteria and comment on that articles' talk page. This policy is supposed to define what is or isn't a good "Featured article candidate". -- Cid Highwind 07:46, 21 Sep 2005 (EDT) Also, please see a new draft at Memory Alpha:Featured article nomination policy/temp. Comments here. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 13:20, 21 Sep 2005 (EDT) Any further comments on this or the Peer review page? If not, I'll enact this after this weekend. -- Cid Highwind 11:05, 22 Sep 2005 (UTC)

What if there are objections made by some user(s) and they are addressed by other user(s) but the user(s) who objected does not return within the voting period, to object further or re-read the article. Can such a vote be dismissed ? The proposed voting system still has to be unanimous, what about to let the majority decided, if that is feasible or even a desired option. ? -- Q 18:34, 22 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I don't like this "unanimity thing", I would say if a point is ironed out, an "oppose" is avoided. ("Oppose" without reason = invalid) And five votes might be a little much? --Memory 22:51, 22 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Well, the way my suggestion is laid out, any nomination needs five votes. If you can't find five people from this community who are interested in the page you suggest, then maybe the page isn't really worth featuring. I don't think that the number is unreasonable, most nominations now get votes from five or more different people - increasing the number of necessary votes has been among the suggestions for a better policy.

But, this is important, I think - these votes don't necessary have to be support votes. If you are opposing, you have to add a valid reason for your objection. If you don't, your vote doesn't count at all, but if you do and someone fixes the problem you brought up, your vote will count as one of the five necessary votes. This means that the result doesn't have to be "unanimous" as in "no opposing votes at all", just as in "no unfixed valid objections", which is something one should expect from a "featured article".

To make that clear, if we are restricting objections to a small set of "valid reasons", I'm absolutely against a simple majority vote. If an article contains unfixed problems, it isn't worth being featured. -- Cid Highwind 23:15, 22 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Added Memory Alpha:Featured article criteria to policies. Further discussion on its talk page, if necessary. -- Cid Highwind 15:53, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

  • I didn't read this that intensely, but it seems acceptable. I do feel, however, based on the recent friction this area of M/A has had the last couple months, we should make it clear that it is a new policy and that addendums or omissions may yet be made to it. --Alan del Beccio 17:38, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Updated the policy as suggested. Please comment if there's still anything you think needs discussion. The section "Revoking nominations" is still the old one, and I'd like to update that as well, now that we have a stricter set of rules and criteria. Any suggestions? -- Cid Highwind 09:01, 7 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Is it not better to make the unresolved FA issues a must ? 'Before nominating a second article, the first one must be resolved.' I have some doubt whether the peer review needs to be voluntary or not, just to prevent long voting sessions on the FA page. -- Q 16:57, 7 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Well, that is exactly what was intended: "users may nominate articles, one at a time". You are right, this could be interpreted in different ways, I'll rephrase that part. Regarding a mandatory peer review phase, I suggested that earlier somewhere, but got no real support. If there's a consensus for it, we might still add it. -- Cid Highwind 11:55, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I think this new policy is perfectly reasonable, but would like some decision on unanimity. Who says whether objections have been resolved? The original objector or other users? If the original objector never reviews the article they can hold it up even if the objection has been resolved so I think that needs some clarification, otherwise I like it. Logan 5 12:40, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Amount of supports

5 users seems outrageous! Very, very little amount of articles will be able to achieve FA status, not because of the article itsaelf but because no-one looks at the Nominations page any more. This most definately needs to be changed! Otherwise, probably only one article will achieve FA status in the next decade and we'll run out of articles to choose from for the "Article of the Week"! As the votes are just now, "The Collaborator" and "These Are the Voyages..." should both be granted FA status, but won't be as they need 1 or 2 more votes each! That seems ridiculious to me, and a definite indication that the 5 users rule needs to be changed. --Defiant | Talk 12:15, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)

5 users is not outrageous at all, better to extend the period than reduce it down to a totally meaningless number. If an article can't gather enough support to generate 5 votes one way or the other then it shouldn't go through. Collaborator is an example, it's gathered comments but not 5 votes, which seems to me to indicate it's not really ready for FA status. What would be outrageous is having so few votes make an article eligible that 2-3 users could continually support each others nominations and flood the FAs with articles that the rest of the community has little or no support for. It is the community we're talking about, right? Passing articles through with so little activity is one reason we get ridiculous articles like Ethan Novakovich as FAs. I think 5 votes, non-unanimous, is perfectly fine and doesn't stop you from lobbying for more attention for your favorite articles as you are clearly doing for the episodes. Logan 5 12:38, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer 4 supporting votes. --Defiant | Talk 13:28, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I already replied to a similar comment above. Regarding the number of votes, I agree with Logan. Rising the number of necessary votes has been a suggestion by the community - if an article isn't good or interesting enough to get supported by five or more members of the community, it doesn't deserve a message that basically states that "the community thinks this is one of our best articles". It's not as if we desperately need to have X new FA articles per week, and of course, it's allowed to bring some attention to the whole process. -- Cid Highwind 13:34, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)
With V'Ger we have the first example that the five votes rule might be nonsense, especially regarding the fact that there were no opposing votes at the time of removal. It seems that voting on FAC has become "uncool", so the current nominations may have no chance with this rule. There are two possibilities: abolish the time limitation and wait until a nominated article gets five votes, or reduce it to three votes. --Memory 20:13, 5 Dec 2005 (UTC)
I would still strongly opposed lowering the number of necessary votes. But I'd support leaving articles up until they get 5 votes total or a month has gone by without activity. Logan 5 20:31, 5 Dec 2005 (UTC)
Ok, then I'll remove the ten days rule tomorrow. --Memory 16:28, 6 Dec 2005 (UTC)
I, too, oppose the reduction of necessary votes - the reasons stated above are still valid. I also oppose the idea of completely "abolishing" any time limitation, because that would leave us no option to actually remove nominations that no one is interested in. Changing the time limitation might be an option to be discussed, although the V'Ger nomination apparently was removed after 26 days without further support. Would a time limit of one month or even more have changed the result? (BTW, the policy talks about "7 days inactive", not "7 days since first nomination", keep that in mind). What about actually advertising your nomination on other users' talk pages? I think someone requested my vote regarding the Ferengi-nomination, and although I refrained from voting in that case, this sure is a possibility to find some support... -- Cid Highwind 17:13, 6 Dec 2005 (UTC)
I was the user who requested your vote on the Ferengi nomination and I think that was an acceptable, though slightly annoying, way of making sure an article you support at least gets attention. If the article gets 3-4 votes, but then after a month of inactivity, even with direct requests by the nominator to other users it still doesn't generate enough votes then...tough. I would have been very upset if this were the case with Ferengi because I thought it was worthy. But if I couldn't get 5 people to vote on it, one way or the other for a month, I could complain about users but not the policy. Logan 5 18:47, 6 Dec 2005 (UTC)
Oh please not the advertising. Ok, it worked here and at the German MA (where the five vote rule doesn't exist) for some cases, but it's also some kind of spamming. I checked the rules of the FAC process of the German and the English Wikipedia for comparison, the English has no minimum number of votes and the German demands three (pro) - so the question is justifiable if MA needs this. With three votes V'Ger would have made it - justified, I think. --Memory 19:54, 6 Dec 2005 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia also has a mandatory peer review phase, a much stricter definition of a "featured article" and a user base that more actively opposes nominations based on this. I don't know if the two projects can that easily be compared in this regard. -- Cid Highwind 20:12, 6 Dec 2005 (UTC)
We have a peer review too (where is it written that the WP-PR is mandatory?). And our demands are not strict? O_o Maybe our user base isn't big enough for five votes? --Memory 20:32, 6 Dec 2005 (UTC)
FA suggestions on Wikipedia are regularly opposed because images used are considered to be not "fair use" (which we should probably start to think about as well), there are small formatting issues or some tiny tidbits of information are missing. Wikipedia also has a box titled "The path to a Featured Article", which has "peer review" as the fourth of six steps.
Regarding the recent change to the policy (which I rolled back for the moment, see below) - first, I think there hasn't been a consensus for the suggested change and second, the actual change is not equal to the suggested one. With the "new" policy, it would actually be much easier to vote down any suggestion - wait until there are four votes, then be the fifth one to oppose and immediately remove the suggestion, because "a nomination can be resolved if it has reached five votes.. -- Cid Highwind 01:48, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)
Ok, but something must be changed, if it is going on this way (also regarding the current nominations), nearly no articles will become featured in the future. So if the time limitation can't be dismissed, we have to change the votes mode. --Memory 12:20, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rollback Dec 11

I rolled back the recent change to the policy because I feel that some of the discussion points above are still unaddressed - at least there's no obvious consensus for a policy change in my opinion. I'm part of that discussion myself, so maybe some other contributors need to look into this. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 01:21, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)

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