Wikipedia talk:Danny's contest

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• Danny's second contest talk

Yay! I won't be winning this (because my work on Wikipedia doesn't hardly ever focus on one article at a time) but I've been doing my small part in this direction for a long time now, and I'm pleased to see this further effort. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

An excellent idea, Danny. Well done. A self-interested question, as I am half-way through improving a historical-related article to featured status, and did one pretty much single-handed a few weeks ago, and a couple of comment.

Question 

It there a starting point for this contest? That is, must the article be unsourced / unfeatured / stubbish / whatever on or before a particular date? I am guessing that an article that was improved to featured status last month, for example, would be ineligible?

Well, I guess the question is answered here. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment 1 

There is a regular procession of featured articles on historical topics through WP:FAC anyway - particularly military history: history and war are two of the largest categories on WP:FA already. Perhaps future competitions could concentrate on other important areas were we are particularly deficient but progress seems to be much slower, such as chemical elements (only 3 featured), or countries (over 150 still to do), or heads of state (countless dead kings and presidents), or solar system objects (7 planets left, plus countless moons, comets, asteroids, etc).

And then what will we military history people do? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 14:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

You could use your great writing and research skills on areas other than military history. ;-) --198.185.18.207 15:55, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment 2 

The seemingly-impossible task of improving enough articles to featured article standard was one of the reasons that good articles were created, and why User:Worldtraveller has left. I wonder if WP:FAC is up to the task of approving 100,000 featured articles, particularly as the process currently has a single decision-maker in Raul654 . -- ALoan (Talk) 12:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think scaling is at all a practical concern at this point. It may indeed be the case that FAC can't handle 100,000 articles; but we don't even have 2,000 at the moment, and I see no indication that the rate at which we get new ones is going to increase in an uncontrolled fashion. The 100K FA line will likely prove a much greater challenge than the 1M article one. Kirill Lokshin 14:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

You may get every article featured, if the FAC standards will continue deteriorating, as they do now and if the most active FA-writers will leave WP in droves, as they actually do. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I checked the article about Alexander I of Russia. Strictly speaking, it is sourced. As the tag indicates, the article was copied verbatim from the 1911 Britannica. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Short answer: the time taken by the FA process is already a problem as far as I am concerned. WP:KLF has 2 Featured Articles (The KLF and Fuck the Millennium) and one FAC ongoing which looks almost certain to close with promotion soon (All You Need Is Love (The JAMs). The thing is, I have several articles of or near the same standard queued up for their turn on FAC; with some cleaning and polishing I believe that small WikiProject could quite easily provide another 5, 10 or 15 featured articles. However, given that a nom can take a month, and given that it's quite an exhausting process, it would probably be Christmas 2007 before we ever got there. One thing I am adamant about, though: we must get more FAs by writing more articles which are world class, not by lowering the standards in any way. --kingboyk 22:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Question 

Is the award for the most improved in terms of sourcing? Or most improved in general? I hope it's the former. If it's the latter, then I suppose it's the same as the "improve an article" contest, only the article has to start out unsourced. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 13:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Question 

How about articles that are poorly sourced, such as Maize or Oat? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Requested feature articles"

I agree with the general sentiment that we need more focus on depth rather than width. Easier said than done, mind you. Perhaps greater emphasis on resources like most wanted stubs (which should really be called "most referenced stubs", since the point is that it's not wanted that they continue to be stubs) would be useful, perhaps in a way that's more integrated with the various wikiprojects. However, I don't really see the point in replacing "Requests" with "Requested feature articles". It seems rather problematic to "request" a FA, and basically duplicative of concepts like collaboration of the week. This seems to be more like getting rid of "requests" for the sake of getting rid of requests (which might be a plan, but should be presented as such). It's also doubtful if FA is the best benchmark; the dynamic of the FA process is in effect, a contest to get on the main page, and as such it's likely that the standards will get higher (or at least, arbitrarily more demanding and pernickity, which may not quite be the same thing) in such a way that the total numbers increase only slowly. It's at least as sensible to make an effort to increase the coverage at GA or "B-class article" level, the latter allegedly being what WP1.0 is aiming at. Alai 05:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You must be a man of your word

Just imagine if more people were to register on WP—not just for such sake, nor on-and-off, nor touch-and-go—but to help improve the many thousands of pages that still need help in, and from, every perspective. In 5½ years, we've accomplished a lot within 1,000,000+ articles—but then again, we need to accomplish a lot more than that.

The idea of your contest sounds pretty excellent, as it will bring in more smart ones to get this site in tip-top shape. I wish you good luck in your venture: we will surely hope to live and see the day of FA #100 grand. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 21:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drive for featured articles

Great idea and seems like everyone agrees quality is the next step. So what now? I think we now need to start promoting/advertising this idea throughout wikipedia. What do you guys think? - Tutmosis 19:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC)