I just had a conversation with someone who has worked on a Featured Article or two in Wikipedia. They felt that even though they know Wikipedia possesses some unpleasant cult-like characteristics, they are still helping the world by at least getting some topics up to Featured Article status, because then the articles will be "more stable" and "less edited".

I responded:



Not that I think I'm on to something new here, as this has been said many times, many ways (pardon me, Mel Torme), but I just wanted to put down in a public space my moment of clarity on the issue.

Trouble is that they fail to lock articles in their FA version. On the contrary as soon as an article appears on Main Page it receives deluges of edits.

My problem with the whole 'featured article' status is: who is judging the 'quality' of an article?

Wikipedians. That's who.

It would be interesting to do another vandal study on these like what was done with the U.S. senators to see how long an FA had faulty and/or vandalized info in it.

Trouble is that they fail to lock articles in their FA version. On the contrary as soon as an article appears on Main Page it receives deluges of edits.

Well there's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Colonel_Chaos/study

Trouble is that the FA version that was acceptable back in 2004, as in the case of the Abe Lincoln article, can't even make GA today. Which is "a good thing". Locking that 2004 version would be absurd.

Actually, it's a tiny clique of individuals who run the FAC show.

Trouble is that the FA version that was acceptable back in 2004, as in the case of the Abe Lincoln article, can't even make GA today. Which is "a good thing". Locking that 2004 version would be absurd.

It is only absurd in Bizarro-Wikiland.
Most all REAL encyclopedias maintain stable versions of their core articles for decades.
It is only the fetish for MOAR NOTEZ0RZ DUDE and WP:CITEEVERYTHING, along with the accompanying mentality which equates quality with verifiability with inline cites, which demands the sacrifice of perfectly fine older articles.
Also, notice how most all REAL pedias don't have tons of inline citations, or ugly tags demanding them, plastered everywhere.
Wikipedia is a mockery of real reference works and serious scholarly practices.

What's bizarre is your absurd idea that an article written in God-knows-when shouldn't be updated as new information comes to light. What's bizarre about wikipedia is that all of its articles will eventually turn into a grey goo, as there's no way to prevent "improvements" even to the best of them.

What really new information do we have on one Mr. A. Lincoln in the last 4, no score, years?
Apart from his appearances in movies or TV shows, that is...

What a strange question. Historians in the latter half of the 20th century often reinterpreted the received wisdom of their predecessors. Facts are rather dry without a sprinkling of context.

Historians in the latter half of the 20th century often build their careers on revisionism to better suit the intellectual and political fashions of the day or their own wacky theories.

Really, so what if Lincoln had Marfan Syndrome or was a homosexual. This is A) Speculation and B) Changes nothing about the essential facts of Lincoln's life.
Believe it or not, Mr. Ripley, encyclopedias, when done objectively, are supposed to be rather dry reading.
Nothing but the facts, Ma'am

A featured article should:

* Be comprehensive, factually accurate, and well-written. Please read Great Writing and The Perfect Article to see how high the bar can be set.
o Accurate: support facts with specifics and external citations (beware vague justifications such as "some people say").
o Well-written: compelling, even "brilliant" prose--the former name for featured articles.
* Be uncontroversial in its neutrality and accuracy (no ongoing edit wars).
* Exemplify Wikipedia's very best work. Represent what Wikipedia offers that is unique on the Internet.
* Include a lead which is brief but sufficient to summarize the entire topic (see Wikipedia:Lead section).
* Include images (pictures, maps and diagrams) where appropriate.
* Include subheads and have a substantial, but not overwhelming, table of contents.
* Comply with the standards set by any relevant WikiProjects, as well as those in the style manual.

Some people feel that every featured article should have a certain length, and if not enough can be said about the article's subject to reach that length, it should in most cases be merged into another article. However excellent short articles are also accepted.

An article does not have to have a picture to be featured; however, even if the subject does not have any obvious images associated with it, a suggested picture which could be used to represent it on the Main Page (it can be an abstract symbol that would be too generic for the article itself) is helpful.

1. It is—
* (a) well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard;
* (b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;
* © well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature on the topic. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported with citations; this requires a "References" section that lists these sources, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;
* (d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; and
* (e) stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process.
2. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of—
* (a) a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
* (b) appropriate structure: a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents; and
* © consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.
3. Images. It has images that follow the image use policy and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions, brief and useful alt text when feasible, and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.
4. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Historians in the latter half of the 20th century often build their careers on revisionism to better suit the intellectual and political fashions of the day or their own wacky theories.

Really, so what if Lincoln had Marfan Syndrome or was a homosexual. This is A) Speculation and B) Changes nothing about the essential facts of Lincoln's life.
Believe it or not, Mr. Ripley, encyclopedias, when done objectively, are supposed to be rather dry reading.
Nothing but the facts, Ma'am

What really new information do we have on one Mr. A. Lincoln in the last 4, no score, years?
Apart from his appearances in movies or TV shows, that is...

People on both sides of the equation are being conned, especially the vandals. At least the altruists probably have nothing better to do, or else they can't afford to give real money to people who need actual charity.

It's not so much that new information has come to light, but standards have risen:



Notice especially the new requirements for "well-researched" and "consistent citations". While in 2004 you could get away with just listing a set of websites and random history books at the bottom. These days, historical articles need to be written using sources from reliable publishers and every paragraph at least needs to be cited.

Most of these 'standards' involve subjective value judgements from within that atmosphere. Hell, on Wikipedia they can't even sort out a reliable, consistent method for judging 'reliable' sources!

The thing is, we've seen that Wikipedia and the non-specialist media types who report on it are willing to disingenuously push and/or blindly accept the idea that one account = one person - even though this is obviously absurd on its face - and even worse, that edits = participation, which is a grossly irresponsible assumption no matter how you slice it. In other words, people like Erik Moeller and Eric Zachte will happily look at edit counts and other such statistics and say, "look at these pretty graphs, they show that contributions are holding steady, so everything is just fine," when a huge portion of those contributors are "socks," "SPAs" and "vandals," and the contributions themselves are what their own people would call "vandalism," "vanity-cruft," and "POV pushing" - not to mention the reverts that follow those things (and also not to mention other trivial edits like categorizations, template-spamming, list-mongering, mass-stubbings, and so on - and that's just in "mainspace").

To be fair, that is true even off-wikipedia. Of course, the problem is exacerbated when persons with agendas can hide behind pseudonyms, and drive away knowledgeable contributors through sheer persistence.

It's not so much that new information has come to light, but standards have risen:

Notice especially the new requirements for "well-researched" and "consistent citations".

While in 2004 you could get away with just listing a set of websites and random history books at the bottom. These days, historical articles need to be written using sources from reliable publishers and every paragraph at least needs to be cited.

Experiment: take a sample of FA's from 2005, and I predict that you can convert them to 2009 level FA's with a minimal amount of work. Style vs. substance.

Both were implicit in the old standards. (e.g., "well researched" == "comprehensive", and so forth).

I picked two random articles from the August 2005 log: Supreme Court of the United States and Jean Schmidt. Would you really say it would take "minimal" work to get them to current FA status? Nowhere close.

Actually, there has been a gradual change to requiring more "academic" sources, see major discussion here: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_criteria/Archive_9#Proposal_for_1.28f.29) for example.

It'd be interesting to see if the slow but steady decline in raw-numbers activity is due to enhancements in vandal deterrence, like the abuse filter, lowering the amount of vandal-fighting busywork that needs to be done. The real question to ask would then be: are more quality articles getting written even as the number of edits and new users slows?

Each to their own. I prefer to discuss issues such as these with rational adults.

Yes, encyclopedia articles don't need to change that rapidly to keep pace with new trends in scholarship, but even the best ones should be updated periodically (I'd say at least every 5 years) even in the absence of paradigm-shift moments. There are other sorts of articles, of course, that should be updated more frequently. If you're going to have an article on Search engine optimization, it's going to need to be updated a lot more frequently.

The only loser is that poor, lazy, middle school kid who only wants to find out the basic facts of some historical figure's life, but is instead confronted by a Franken-Article, cobbled together by an informal congregation of amateurs trying to sound like Rhodes Scholars.

This is exactly why a competitor to Wikipedia is needed. Articles can't be all things to all people. There needs to be a more concise encyclopedia that is written at a high school reading level.