Wikipedia talk:Article of the week

What is this for?

The page explains the procedure for choosing an article of the week, but could you explain the purpose of doing so? —Celithemis 22:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm a little confused about that. ShadowHalo 23:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The purpose here is to identify the best article that the Wikipedia editors have produced this week. I know that the major contributors of the articles will obviously vote for their own articles, but I hope that other, more objective people will come in and judge these articles too. I also hope to be able to publicize the winners somewhere... someday in some important place (i.e. the main page). Diez2 01:06, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Upon further reading, I really should include this in the project page. Thanks for the question. Diez2 01:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, I am not sure what this page is for either - featured articles are rarely produced in one week. New articles are often highlighted at Did you know? - perhaps that would be a better place to direct your efforts? ALoan 10:09, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I know that an FAC takes 2 weeks or more, but once an FAC is entered, many suggestions are made as to how this article should be improved, and the article is usually improved to a point in which it can be promoted to FA status. After that, it can come here. Diez2 13:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

In an FAC, people judge whether or not the article meets the criteria for Featured Articles. If so, they promote it; if not, they fail it. In this project, people judge which article is the best one produced by the editors and promoted by the people. There is no criteria, except to try and pick the best article. Diez2 13:07, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

In the DYK, multiple 1-liners from multiple articles are recgonized on the main page. These articles are not recgonized because they are good, but because they are new articles and have interesting 1-line questions. As for here, articles are recognized because they are good and because the Wikipedia community has judged them to be the best of all the newly promoted articles. Diez2 16:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

How will this improve the encyclopedia? —Celithemis 19:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. How does an article popularity contest help improve said articles? Even if there is some potential benefit to the articles (which I doubt), what is the point of such a contest given that the articles eligible for inclusion are already featured ones (that have just undergone FAC scrutiny)? Confused,--Plek 20:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Gosh! I don't understand: is there some way this might harm the encyclopedia? (Sdsds - Talk) 21:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

First, this is not an FAC. The articles will undergo some scrutiny, but not nearly as much an FAC. The scrutiny that the article goes under in an FAC is equivalent to the scrutiny a user undergoes in an RfA, and although some of this scrutiny is constructive, the majority of the criticism is something along the lines of, "This article sucks!" which really doesn't help the author(s) at all. I think if you really want constructive criticism, you should try a Peer Review. Answer me how the FAC system is better than the peer review system and I'll answer your question about how this contest improves articles.

Just like the FA rating, you can picture this as the best of the articles at FA status. With FAs, there is no limit as to how many articles can be promoted per week (or month). In March, 80+ articles were promoted to FA status. Here, a maximum of 52 articles a year are "promoted," and largely all according to the people's will.

I am really trying to see how I can publicize the results better, like on the Main Page or on the Community Portal, but right now, I am stuck. Any suggestions would be nice.

Finally, like Sdsds said, how will this harm Wikipedia? If anything, it will benefit Wikipedia, even if it simply means proclaiming the best of the best. Diez2 23:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I have serious reservations about this proposal. I question whether this sort of "popularity" competition would have any real substantial benefit to the encyclopedia. What the goal ultimately seems to me to be is almost an FA "beauty contest," and thus could create an unfortunate "my FA is better than your FA" competition. Also, I seriously question whether the standard editor, myself included, is really competent to judge all articles impartially. Would the members of the Pokemon project all vote for a Pokemon FA as article of the week? Almost certainly, and I honestly can't criticize them for doing so. Would these same editors necessarily be competent to judge the comparative quality of an FA dealing with, for instance, the Second Malaysia Plan? I am personally all but certain that the latter article would certainly be completely ignored as rather uninteresting by most editors, particularly if an additional populist FA, like for instance Mariah Carey, a subject more people are probably interested in, were an alternative. In short, I cannot see how this proposal will produce any substantive benefit to wikipedia, and could perhaps be counterproductive, by at least potentially contributing to a sense of unpopularity or futility in editors who work with subjects which have less "star appeal" than other, more popular, subjects. John Carter 02:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. With so many FAs, I doubt many people will take the time to fully read and judge every one. Most will probably just vote on those they're interested in reading, which would favor popular topics. On the other hand, there's a faction that believes that only "serious" subects should be Featured, which might make for a big enough voting bloc to shut out popular culture articles. (I'm kind of interested to see which way it will come out, actually. If there's a betting pool, I'll take dinosaurs.) Either way, there's likely to be some kind of systemic subject bias.

To me, if someone wants to run an award in userspace on their own time, like Durova with her Triple Crown, then they can do anything they want as long as it's not actively harmful. But if someone wants to put a contest in Wikipedia space, use talk page banners to ask people to participate, and generally present it as something official, then it should help the encyclopedia in some way, since that's what we're here for. If people really do read and judge all 35 articles fairly, so that it's a competition between articles rather than between subjects, will that help the encyclopedia in some way commensurate with the time taken? I still don't see how. —Celithemis 03:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[outdent] Regarding the question about how this will hurt Wikipedia. It essentially involves a decent amount of community time and effort for maintenance with probably little effect in actually improving articles. As much as I'd love to see the article I recently got to FA receive WAW, I'm concerned that WAW is simply misallocating time and resources. ShadowHalo 04:09, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's just an opinion thing. I hear some people don't even watch American Idol, much less vote for their favorite! Some of the people who don't watch the show ask, "How does American Idol improve our society?" And really, American Idol (and Article of the week) might be silly ways to spend time. But if people enjoy it, well sheesh, why rain on their parade? I'm sure some people are going to enjoy this week's Article of the week process. They might read a few articles they wouldn't have read otherwise, and maybe even learn a thing or two. How bad can that be? Let's make a pact: we'll all promise that if our favorite article doesn't win, we won't pout too long. After all, we understand it's just a popularity contest!! (Sdsds - Talk) 04:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

But American Idol is fulfilling its role of entertainment. This page, however, "is just a popularity contest", and it doesn't appear that it's going to help us to achieve our goals as an a free encyclopedia. ShadowHalo 05:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, your point is taken. Contributors who don't want to waste their time on this "Article of the week" page should follow their instincts. There are a million other pages for them to focus on that are more worthy of their energy. Personally, though, I don't think it helps us achieve our goals to tell well-intentioned contributors that their efforts are harming wikipedia. (If I may ask bluntly: "Are you assuming good faith?") (Sdsds - Talk) 07:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Assuming bad faith would be if I assumed that the users here were actively seeking to hurt the encyclopedia. Rather, I simply believe that as well-meaning this may be, it ends up hurting the encyclopedia. ShadowHalo 23:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

So let me get this straight. The idea is to have a vote to pick the "best" article out of the Featured article candidates that are promoted to Featured article each week? I still don't really understand what the point of this is (and if this is meant to be a Wikipedia version of American Idol...)

But anyway...

• what do you mean by "best"?
• will newly-promoted Featured lists be included?
• what are you going to do in a slow week? For example, only 3 articles were promoted in the week commencing 1 April 2007, and none in the week commencing 21 January 2007. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand how this will improve the encyclopedia. I personally think any project or feature should improve the encyclopedia. I think this distracts from the encyclopedia because it draws resources (editorial eyes) away from editing for a purpose that does not improve the encyclopedia. Furthermore, it is closely related to my WP:TFA/R overhaul proposal, especially the [Wikipedia:Today%27s_featured_article/amendment_proposal#Nominees_and_Votes|monthly vote]]. However, does not have the following benefits:

1. It relieves the burden (time consuming although possibly pleasurable) of WP:TFA selection.
2. It encourages older WP:FAs to keep up with modern standards.
3. It acquaints those involved in producing FAs as well as other participants with numerous other quality articles in brief summary format.
4. It mandates consent to the the collective consensus for an important feature of the encyclopedia, TFA, which showcases the best of Wikipedia to the public.
5. It mandates contribution of administrative assistance (placing votes to render an opinion on TFA) by the best editors (FA nominators).
6. It gives everyone sufficient time 3 weeks to look over a variety of nominees
7. It uses a long enough period to guarantee sufficient nominees to have variety of selection
8. It is inclusive of all FAs (every FA that has never been a TFA is eligible).

This idea is a burden on resources without improving the encyclopedia. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 14:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with many of the points raised above, I also note that there is a list of Featured articles already extant which would allow any interested party to review current and older featured articles, that there is already a page devoted to selecting which FA should be shown on a particular date based on more inherently appropriate means (a given subject's importance to a particular day, month, or whatever) at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests, and the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team already works to determine consent regarding which featured articles (and other articles) are of greatest importance to wikipedia and in most need of attention. In short, so far as I can see, this proposal has no particular original contributions to make to wikipedia, and what significant contributions it might make are already being worked on by other groups, thus at least potentially creating a POV fork regarding importance or quality which would almost certainly be counterproductive. John Carter 15:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

ALoan

1. Best means simply best, the highest quality, and in this case is used singularly.
2. Not at this point. I might include them later, but I seem to be running into a brick wall between you, TonyTheTiger, Warlordjohncarter, and Celithemis without including them.
3. In a slow week, I'll just simply combine 2 weeks together. It won't cause that much of a logistical problem.

As for everyone else, this is very different from a TFA. First and foremost, an article only gets one shot at the award here. In the TFA, a Featured Article can be nominated at any time, and multiple times (if failed). Calling this American Idol is a stretch, but it would be more like a people's choice award. Second, the TFA, as I'm seeing it, has a humongous backlog. The articles are already has a queue running until November of this year, and about 90 more articles left undated, with a total of 141 articles. True, I agree with many of the benefits of the TFA, and I say good for it. However, comparing it with this is really not appropriate. 1 week (or actually about 1 week and 3 days) is sufficient time to look over about 15-18 articles, and this is just the period before voting is opened up. I do not agree that this would put a stretch on resources because people do not have to spend all their time looking at the articles. Furthermore, people do not have to look at all the articles in 1 sitting. (Nobody looks at all the articles nominated for the TFA in 1 sitting either). They might look at 1-2 articles and then go back to editing for a time.
As for publicity, any suggestions would be nice. Simply objecting without an alternative is really not constructive and largely a waste of my time to read, when I could be editing.
As for wasting time by distracting editors, since when has anything other than anti-vandalism on Wikipedia happened quickly? This discussion, for instance, takes up a page and a half on my screen, but has taken 4 days to fill. As for the constructiveness of it all, the authors and other editors of the articles will most likely take a look at the other nominees and then see how their article can be better than those nominees, and thus attract more support votes. It's as simple as that. Diez2 15:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, as for the importance and quality debate, I have added a clause on the main project page that strongly urges people to use the FA criteria as a guide, and to not use the subject matter or importance of an article as a method for voting. Diez2 16:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Ideally it would be so, but I agree with the opinion stated above that the article of the week will inevitably be chosen based on how fun or amusing or culturally salient the subject is, and not based on objective quality standards. I know that I, for one, will not go through this long list of articles, carefully review each one, tally up their respective merits, and then vote for the top scoring article. I doubt anyone else will either. nadav 05:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Having fun!

Just a quick note to say I really had fun reading each of these articles (OK, I skimmed a few ;-) trying to decide if I was going to vote to support them. I like the format: vote "support" for those you like, and maybe leave a brief comment saying why. If an article doesn't catch your fancy, then just pass on to the next one. It took about 5 minutes per article, on average. I learned a bit about each topic, and gained a bit of insight into how editors of other parts of Wikipedia craft their articles. Thanks for setting this up! (Sdsds - Talk) 07:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What on earth

What on earth is the point of this, other than more bureaucracy and red tape? There exists no objective way of stating that any featured article is better than any other. >Radiant< 10:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. For an article to be featured it must meet the Featured Article Criteria which almost mirror the criteria of the perfect article. How can one article be more perfect than another? Another problem I have with this is that Wikipedia is supposed to be a collaboration, not a competition. For every featured article that becomes "best of the week" there may be several that didn't. I for one don't want to see the community sending a message that could be interpreted as "well, you tried your best but your best wasn't good enough. Your contributions just aren't as good as XXX's. You're a loser". That is in effect what this is a proposal for; it's totally against the spirit and purpose of Wikipedia. Waggers 11:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I must confess that I don't get it either. One FA's quality should be virtually indistinguishable from that of another. Moreschi ^Talk 14:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Without prejudice, at the very least the name of the project should be changed to "Wikipedia People's Choice Awards" or "Wikipedia Article Popularity Contest" or something similar to clarify its true nature. nadav 15:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• The point is not that the name is inappropriate, the point is that this there does not appear to be a practical use for this process. >Radiant< 16:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I obviously agree, and am still waiting for supporters (if any) to give a convincing reason to let this process exist, which can only suck up time and resources and lead to infantile my-article-is-better-than-your-article debates. But now I am merely repeating things already said by others. nadav 00:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone here read the WP:VP?

I have a simple question. This idea was pitched several times by me in the Villiage Pump, and no one objected to it. They all said something like, "Great Idea." You can find that pitch here. Why weren't any of these objections raised there, when the proposal was there almost 3-4 days before this page was built? Someone tell me that. Diez2 15:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• It follows that 3-4 days is too short a span of time to seek consensus on a new process. We are now on, what, day five, and it turns out that there in fact are several people objecting to it. Note that the first two posts on this page already asked what the point is of this process? So please tell us what is the point? How does this help the encyclopedia? >Radiant< 15:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

There isn't one, the page doesn't tell what this is for other than to pick "the best article" whatever that is supposed to mean. It seems to me that this is just process for its own sake, no actual benefit is to be derived from this. Reject, whole heartedly, and without hesitation. I mostly agree with the comments above, this is a pointless waste of time and resources, me even commenting here is a pointless waste of time. This whole page should probably just be MfDed instead of even discussed. IvoShandor 15:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• Reject as impractical popularity contest. Good idea in theory, but since no one would bother reading all the FAs, and even those who bother to read a few probably aren't qualified enough to fairly judge them, the votes would be pointlessly weighted towards the more interesting topics, rather than towards actual article quality. Besides, most FAs will get their "time to shine" on the main page sooner or later, so this seems like needless padding. Better to organize new FA review teams if you really want to improve the quality of FAs, rather than trying to do so with a silly popularity contest. -Silence 17:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• I think there is a key difference between this and the "article of the year" you proposed on the Village Pump. An article of the year is a fun competition, but it's over soon, it doesn't distract from day to day editing much, and as only one of hundreds of FAs will win, it is much less susceptible to block voting by members of a small but dedicated project. An article of the week, or even of the month, is a continuous ongoing competition, much more distracting. 'Oppose this. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• The short answer is: no, no-one reads the Village Pump. Particularly not the people involved in the FA process, who are all too busy trying to deal with the FA backlog... The Land 21:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• First thing that comes to my mind is, it would be more helpful for editors to read FAs before they are promoted than after. I think this should be discussed at Miscellany for deletion. Gimmetrow 00:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As regards Wikipedia in general: some users are contributors; others just consumers. As regards the FA process -- the same: some contribute to the FA process, some merely benefit from it post fact. Of course in time some people will move "up" the ladder. But look at it from the perspective of those of us still on the lower ladder rungs. Doesn't the belittling of efforts that encourage us to read newly created FAs seems counterproductive? (Sdsds - Talk) 03:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't meant as "belittling", quite the contrary. I think reading and reviewing articles is important, but if someone is going to read and review a number of FAs, then it strikes me that it would help the encyclopedia more if this effort were directed during the FA process than right after. Gimmetrow 04:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Article of a lifetime

Finding Wikipedia's best article would be interesting. If Commons can do it with images, we can do it with FAs. Λυδαcιτγ 23:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think that was already done, in a sense. One of User:Kingboyk's articles on The KLF won some recognition at last year's conference for favorite FA. John Carter 21:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The merits of popularity

All other aspects judged as being equal, would it be better for an article to be popular or unpopular? Asked differently: is this a populist encyclopedia or an elitist one? (Sdsds - Talk) 03:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Neither. It's (supposed to be) a neutral encyclopaedia. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to be popular nor to establish its users as "the elite". To quote from the key policies section of WP:POLICY: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Its goals go no further, and material that does not fit this goal must be moved to another Wikimedia project or removed altogether." So it really doesn't matter whether an article is popular or not, it only matters that the article accords with Wikipedia policies. Our aim is to provide information, not to promote it. Waggers 07:42, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Article of the Year?

Something that might be worthwhile is article of the year. This would be similar to various writing contests that have taken place in the past. Wikipedia:Danny's contest was one, I believe. The "...of the Month" and "...of the Week" proposals are too bureaucratic and detract from genuine efforts to improve the encyclopedia, in my opinion. In contrast, a "...of the Year" contest would reduce the effort to a one-off event every year, and might generate genuine, positive, publicity. I suggest both these proposals are merged and redirected to Wikipedia:Article of the year. Carcharoth 16:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Didn't we have picture of the year a few months back? I remember voting for a matchstick--Valley2city^₪‽ 06:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

That is a pretty good idea, IMHO. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Good work

Congratulations on the good work done in rejecting this "proposal". The actions were fully consistent with Wikipedia policy, e.g. WP:STEAM. (Sdsds - Talk) 09:16, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone can view this as anything other than a proposal at present - unless there's been a lot of discussion on it somewhere I haven't yet seen. The Land 11:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Whew! I thought this idea had been successfully stifled. I'm glad to find that discussion is still open! One question I have is about how voluntary group activities on Wikipedia compare with "Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process" activities. This "Article of the week" idea wasn't proposed as a "policy, guideline, or process" that had to be followed. It seems much more like just a useful voluntary activity. Could someone who sees this as "red tape" explain that view in more detail? Red tape usually refers to a bureaucratic process that somehow prevents people from doing what they wish to do. How could a totally voluntary activity be red tape? (Sdsds - Talk) 19:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

You're quite right, I should have speedily deleted it. You are, I hope, aware that sarcasm is strictly forbidden by Wikipedia policy? >Radiant< 09:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I had no idea Wikipedia policy forbids anything that might improve the encyclopedia! (Sdsds - Talk) 09:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

(Oh and also, as I wrote at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Article of the week, there doesn't yet seem to be a concensus on this, does there? (Sdsds - Talk) 09:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

• A proposal is not rejected by the presence of a consensus to reject it, but by the absence of a consensus to support it. Common misconception; see WP:POL for details. >Radiant< 09:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, thanks for pointing that out. But now I'm confused, and solicit your help in understanding the current situation. Are you suggesting "Article of the week" was proposed as a policy or guideline? Or was it intended as something more like a Wikiproject? Is the process for creating anything in the Wikipedia: namespace always so heavily weighted towards inaction? (Sdsds - Talk) 10:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

• I'd call it "process" or "project", but the point is that it is generating extra work (not to mention strife) for little or no benefit. The way this is designed, it will draw many editors who have better things to do into a debate whether my article is better than your article. I'm sure it's well intended and all, but it's simply giving more heat than light. And, well, yes, most attempts to create a new process in Wikispace fail because people aren't convinced of the need of that process. >Radiant< 10:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

During the very brief time the experiment was allowed to run, there wasn't any apparent strife. What evidence supports the assertion that this will create strife or debate about the merits of articles? Remember, this is explicitly an approval voting process. No one has an opportunity to vote against any article! (Sdsds - Talk) 14:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Combine with DYK?

I wonder if there's a way to combine some process that would select a "most popular newly featured article" with the existing Wikipedia:Did you know process. According to Template Talk:Did you know, "Eligible articles may only be up to 5 days old, or significantly expanded in the last 5 days." So it's practically impossible for a newly featured article to have a DYK entry. Does anyone think the DYK folks might consider changing their policy? (Sdsds - Talk) 19:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

In this case, no. Very rarely does an article become a featured article almost immediately upon creation. Generally, they become so after several months of work. More recently created articles certainly have an opportunity to be nominated for DYK if they are more than 1500 characters long. Also, the DYK process of using a "hook" to draw attention could itself be an obstacle to featured articles which do not lend themselves to comparatively short "hooks". John Carter 14:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Archival post-DRV

I would prefer to see prior discussions on this page archived, now that the deletion review has been closed. Noting WP:CCC, it would be good if this page could focus on how concensus on the subject of "Article of the week" might change, rather than on the concensus decision-making that led to this proposal being rejected. If even one other person agrees, I encourage them to be WP:BOLD and create the archive. (Sdsds - Talk) 01:46, 14 May 2007 (UTC)