UDWiki talk:Featured Articles

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Let's get this over with

and get the Featured articles up on the front page. What I propose is we replace the current Template:Community Portal with this:

Community Portal

Featured Article

River.gif River Tactics are a broad range of strategies which seek to gain an advantage over zombie horde and mega-horde incursions through flexibility, redirection and avoidance. Borrowing heavily from concepts cultivated in Aikido, River Tactics do not directly conflict with the thrust of enemy strikes, instead exploiting the voids for survivor advantage.

Read More

Community Projects

  • The Mayoral Election is now over. Thank you to all candidates and voters for making this an event to remember. (Victory Speech.)
  • Building Information Center - A major collaborative effort of the Urban Dead community to update Building Danger Levels for use of all UD players.
  • NecroWatch - A community collaboration aimed at collecting NecroNet scan information and making it easily available to everyone.

The Featured Article would be chosen weekly from the pool of Good Articles, and would consist of a brief summary (or the opening blurb) of the article, a link to the article, and a small picture representing the article.

If you have anything you'd like to see changed about this box, speak up; otherwise, I'll be upgrading the template to this version within the next few days. ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 21:30, 11 July 2010 (BST)

Make it so. Although how long will each featured article run for? We can rotate through them if we want to change them more regularly, there's nothing stopping us looping them in a shuffled cycle. When I fall, I'll weep for happiness 21:40, 11 July 2010 (BST)

I might suggest longer than once a week, especially while starting out, but assuming we have the pool of articles and continued interest, one week, and going ahead with this, is fine. —Aichon— 21:42, 11 July 2010 (BST)

Yeah, the "weekly" part is more of an ideal rotation. With only 18 articles in the FA pool right now, I'm thinking two weeks per rotation might be a better start. Thoughts?~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 21:49, 11 July 2010 (BST)
Hang on, I'm sure we can dredge up some nominees if you gimme an hour. When I fall, I'll weep for happiness 21:50, 11 July 2010 (BST)
That's the spirit :) The way I see it, if this thing gets more air, we'll see more nominees; more nominees means more candidates, which means more articles to cycle, which means shorter cycle times. ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 21:56, 11 July 2010 (BST)
Is there still a moritorium on group pages? If not, BB3 should be considered (fucking look at it). Also I'm thinking Actions via "question marks", if it was prettied up some more. When I fall, I'll weep for happiness 22:11, 11 July 2010 (BST)
Excellent. Alphabetical order? --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:13, 11 July 2010 (BST)
I was thinking random order, but it's really going to be up to whoever is cycling the FAs. And sorry Mis, but this suggestion is just getting the FAs up on the main page. We'd have to go through the GA page to change the group page rules (I might look into that after this stage is done). ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 22:18, 11 July 2010 (BST)

Two weeks is fine in the short term. We'll probably want between 25 and 30 FA's before we move to a one-week cycle (read: so the same article is not featured more than once in a six-month period.) Linkthewindow  Talk  01:13, 12 July 2010 (BST)

I'd strongly suggest showing a mockup of the main page before enacting this. I hardly see how that massive template is going to fit anywhere near as snugly as the current community portal box. --

08:05, 13 July 2010 (BST)

The whole thing could easily be shrunk down to fit, there's no element to it that forces it to be that size, after all. When I fall, I'll weep for happiness 14:07, 13 July 2010 (BST)
I've had an example for quite a few months. It's barely wider than the current community portal template, and a bit taller. Heck, on my computer, this thing fits the screen better than the navigation templates below it.
That does remind me, though, that I never did the rounded-corners thing with this. One sec. ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 19:49, 13 July 2010 (BST)
Shorter please. Lose the paragraph starting "Conceptually, River Tactics are simply any plan that uses avoidance of the enemy as a positive characteristic." --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 20:08, 13 July 2010 (BST)
Also a space between the "meatshield tactics" and the "(see below)". When I fall, I'll weep for happiness 20:13, 13 July 2010 (BST)
Look at the way they do the portal's at the Fallout Wiki
Could we make a featured article about Kevan, Or how he made urbandead.
And we could always have a featured urbandead group of the day,
Maybe even make a portal specific to Borehamwood and Monroeville.

-- Jerrel tlk (82nd!) (Project Unwelcome!). 20:34, 13 July 2010 (BST)

DO I NEED TO HELP? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:02, 13 July 2010 (BST)

Yeah. Probably. And finish your game! Stupid flooded underground tunnels. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:07, 13 July 2010 (BST)
I thought I got past that part in the game. I don't really know. Maybe, but not now. Perhaps August. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:09, 13 July 2010 (BST)

I think we should have a vote to decide the Featured Article. Just my 2 cents. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 22:16, 13 July 2010 (BST)

Alphabetical, and just run through the list. No drama, no voting, just pure simplicity. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:18, 13 July 2010 (BST)
Did anyone look at the way they do it on the fallout wiki?-- Jerrel tlk (82nd!) (Project Unwelcome!). 22:21, 13 July 2010 (BST)
I did. It seems v. similar to the river tactics article shown in the example above. How else would you modify it? --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 22:24, 13 July 2010 (BST)
Using another well known wiki as my example, Bulbapedia (the Pokemon wiki) has a featured article on it's main page as well, but they only get featured if they pass the voting stage here. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 22:25, 13 July 2010 (BST)
Weapons, clothes, and the atricle about kevan. Do we even have one like that?-- Jerrel tlk (82nd!) (Project Unwelcome!). 22:38, 13 July 2010 (BST)
User:Kevan When I fall, I'll weep for happiness 22:41, 13 July 2010 (BST)
We have a voting stage for Good Articles, which is the pool that the Features Articles are selected from. So, we do have voting. Ross and others are merely proposing that the Good Articles be cycled through as Featured Articles in alphabetical order, and I tend to agree. —Aichon— 22:49, 13 July 2010 (BST)
One thing I'm wondering about alphabetical: what happens when a new article get's added? ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 00:42, 14 July 2010 (BST)
This is why I think the article should be voted onto the front page... --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 00:43, 14 July 2010 (BST)
Slotted into the current rotation if possible, and added to the next rotation if not. If the current Featured Article is Decay, and Eastonwood is added to the list, then happy days, it's the next one. However, if Brooke Hills gets added, it'll be shown in the next cycle after the current one rotates. When I fall, I'll weep for happiness 00:45, 14 July 2010 (BST)
I'm more a fan of just picking randomly from the pool of yet-to-be featured articles, but whatever the majority says. :/ ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 00:49, 14 July 2010 (BST)
I think it could also be possible to have the articles cycle randomly, either by one FA on Monday, another on Tuesday etc or switching each hour. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 01:07, 14 July 2010 (BST)
While it is possible to use switch statements and magic words to make it happen (though caching would kinda negate some of the effect, especially on an hourly basis), it'd be awfully difficult for a regular user to keep maintained (i.e. virtually impossible given that they'd have to expand the logic of the switch statement to add a new article once we get above a couple dozen articles). Anyway, while I think a random ordering is better as well, I just don't see how it can be done in a low hassle, low drama sort of way. Plus, if we were to have a separate Featured Article vote, that'd mean weekly or bi-weekly votes over the same material every time. That'd be miserable. —Aichon— 02:45, 14 July 2010 (BST)
I don't see how random could be that dramatic, you just have someone go to Category:Good Articles and throw a dart at their moni... I mean, randomly click on one of the articles, check if it's been a FA yet, and post it if it hasn't. ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 02:52, 14 July 2010 (BST)
People could just pick pools of 7 and rotate it every week, or two weeks, or month (whatever). It's easy to change the FAs for a new pool all you need to is exchange the individual cases for the new ones. Regardless, I really don't think anyone will really care which FA gets to be posted first. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 04:10, 14 July 2010 (BST)

Suggested Order

--RosslessnessWant a Location Image?   19:03, 14 July 2010 (BST)

I'd still rather we randomize the order, but this will do nicely. What do you say we transition the new template tonight, use River Tactics as a test FA (think of it as a "gift" to the article for being such a good little example), then start the official rotation Saturday/Sunday night? ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 02:54, 15 July 2010 (BST)

I'd prefer that the dates be listed in international standard (e.g. 2010-07-19) since what you have there looks like nonsense to Americans, but that's just a quibble point. Everything else looks fine though. —Aichon— 03:31, 15 July 2010 (BST)

Based on Ross's calendar, I've gone ahead and updated the template. If you'd like to jazz up the FA a little bit, be my guest; we're probably going to want to start working on the write-ups for the future FA's pretty soon. ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 03:14, 19 July 2010 (BST)

BoB has a spelling error under the Prologue section. I'll give a cookie to whoever finds that minor mistake. ;) --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 03:15, 19 July 2010 (BST)
Luckily, I found it. ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 03:18, 19 July 2010 (BST)
Cookie.jpg A FREE COOKIE
Axe Hack has given Red Hawk One a cookie for luckily correcting a minor spelling error.
It wouldn't be a good thing if the Featured Article has mistakes in it, now would it? ;) --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 03:19, 19 July 2010 (BST)

The Effects of Numbers section has a misspelling as well. Rat if you find it. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 03:30, 19 July 2010 (BST)

I'll see that error and raise you 2 in "It begins," 2 in "The fight Narrows," 4 in "An amazing show of class," one more in "The effect of numbers," Two in "Mantooth..." and two in "Politics." ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 03:36, 19 July 2010 (BST)
I see that you're skiming the article as well. I'd edit them if I can, but as you can see, I have no Psycho powers. Therefore, it's all yours to edit. Again, it wouldn't really be a good thing if the Featured Article has mistakes in it, now would it? --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 03:39, 19 July 2010 (BST)
I reckon we should make it a mandatory that all articles going up for GA status be Spell-Checked. ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 03:42, 19 July 2010 (BST)
I agree. I'll just swap that rat there for a pint. I'm sure it should cover everything.
Guin.PNG A pint of Guinness
Axe Hack has given Red Hawk One a pint of Guinness for minor spell check edits on the BoB page.

--•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 03:45, 19 July 2010 (BST)

New System?

It seems clear that, despite looking good on paper, the current featured article system is not working. It was over six months after the current system was suggested that the first vote was called, and another four since then without any votes. As a counter-proposal, I suggest we adopt a system similar to Wikipedias'. The system would work out something like this:

  1. The Good Article Category would serve as the FA pool. A new article would be featured each week.
  2. If no significant discussion is made on upcoming FA's, the system would default to a pre-determined and random queue. This is to prevent problems such as the current abandonment.
  3. The queue would expand 1-2 months in advance (4-8 articles), with new articles being assigned at random. Users would be able to influence this by suggesting additional GAs to add to the queue, or petition to have the queue changed/shuffled.
  4. UDWiki:Featured Articles/Voting would become obsolete, and would be best replaced by a queue page much like This.
  5. In order to be featured, an article must have an appropriate opening statement (or a substitute written) and preferably a related image.

By instituting a randomized system, we would insure that there would be a featured article, even if the community looses interest (which history shows it inevitably will).

Citations:

Questions:

  1. How should the backup (random queue) system be run? Should an individual user be appointed to chair the project (like Wikipedia)? Should it be controlled by sysops? Should it be openly run by anyone?
  2. Should users supply a FA opening blurb with their nomination for GA?
  3. What happens if the pool is exhausted?
  4. Should there be restrictions on what can qualify as a FA candidate (possibly causing a GA-FA split)?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I am sure that many of you, like myself, would love to see Featured Articles as a working project.--~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 05:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's begin with the most obvious point; this is not Wikipedia, nor is it any other encyclopaedia. If you insist on holding up Wikipedia as a example and saying we should move towards it is no more valid than idiot followers of the nailed god showing up and saying we should follow Conservapedia's 'principles'.
The systems that 'work' on this wiki are short easily completable ones, suggestions, deletions, promotions.... just about everything is limited to two weeks, short exposure, discussion, final resolution. Matter solved. Ongoing 'projects' in this game and wiki fail, stall and fall apart.
Point five is simply ridiculous, let's forget the fact that the NPOV statement criteria is never actually enforced except for drama reasons and had widespread support to remove such a criteria from pages in general, you want to start editing pages from groups from years ago that you have no basis to speak on intelligently? It's stupid, and based on the consensus of another project and not this one.
This whole 'good article/featured article' shit is pointless for the simple reason that nobody looks at the front page after they get the hang of using wiki software, I get updates to the news based on my watchlist, not going to the front page and looking it over. The system works on the guides page in the same manner as the suggestions system, a one shot to determine placement in archives that hardly anyone looks at.
You want a system for a front page that will work, you don't need a elaborate system from another community, you need a small focussed effort to happen periodically like with the suburb massacres. Here, I shall write one for you:
  1. The year shall be split into four equal sections of 13 weeks.
    • Resulting in four short and intense participation events each year, 'Featuring for the Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter'.
  2. For each period of the year there will be 13 featured articles that will be featured on the main page for one week each.
  3. Four weeks before the end of a period a two week nomination window will open for users to nominate any page they choose.
    • This nomination period allows for feedback to be given to users with the editing rights to those pages in case they wish to make changes in order to gain votes.
    • Any page on the wiki may be nominated, except for pages that are featured in the current period.
  4. At the end of the two weeks of nominations, a two week voting window is opened.
  5. Each active user with more than 50 good faith edits to the project since the last voting window is permitted 13 votes.
    • A small edit count qualifier prevents immediate meat puppetry.
    • Each qualifying user may cast up to 13 votes and a maximum of one per nominated page.
  6. At the end of the two weeks of voting the 13 pages with the most votes become the featured articles for the next cycle.
  7. The articles are featured in the order of the number of votes received, ties will be settled alphabetically, further ties will be settled with monkey knife fights.
  8. Featured articles are added to the featured articles category for the duration of the cycle that they are featured, after this they are removed and added to the former featured articles category.
You see how easy that was? -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 05:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I demand monkey knife fights! In fact, I think this discussion should be resolved by monkey knife fight! --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 06:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

The first issue is that Did You Know's are too biased and useless to be put on the main page, let alone cycled. Cycling them means we'll run out of decent ones within a period of months. Our best bet at putting FA's onto the main page is by having them on their solo. DYK's are a dead plan imo. --

07:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

That was actually a response to seeing your sandbox BTW, not responding to the FA bit just yet. -- 07:07, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I like the general idea of DYKs and FAs, but I have to agree that "Did you know the people are hungry for hippos?" isn't really the best thing to put on the main page. If we had, say, 5000 DYKs, and half as many GAs, we could do it.--Yonnua Koponen Talk ! Contribs 07:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

That's why I'm trying to put more GA's into the system. I suppose I should start doing the same with DYK as well. :)
Anyone have any good ideas?--~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 14:33, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

For the DYK's, you could just get a nice pool of good ones (which we probably have) and keep them cycling automatically, or manually, whatever works. They were really just intended as filler. Originally, we were going to have the current FA on the main page on in the CommPort box, but we never really got it off the ground. We likely won't be able to keep a nice FA featured every day, or week for that mater, unlike Wikipedia, but we can do what RationalWiki does and just have it automatically flip through a list of FAs (dono how possible that is here, but from what I've done with my little userspace game, the {{Switch}} template can sort of get this done to a similar effect). Also, I am no fan of what I've done with CommPort, feel free to mutilate it as you will, and if you need help, just holler. I would keep the DYK's off of the main page, since they would be duplicated in the CP. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:34, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

You know, there is very rarely going to be a consensus on this and honestly, if I wasn't going to be leaving in a month I would have spent tonight just updating the FA list myself and modified the system so users can unilaterally cycle it according to a certain time period. In fact, if I find myself gravitating back here I'll probably end up doing it post April election. Over all these years the biggest thing about the CP has been proved; it takes workaholics or wikidragons to actually get the necessary changes done. Discussions don't work as well with this place. --

12:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Current Voting

I think we are pretty much overdue for voting. Based on how I see things on the FA/V page, people can add a page they feel fits the Feature Article criterion to the "Next Pool" list. Every week one of these articles will get moved to "Current Voting" and voting will take place here (probably getting archived at the end of the week). Voting will be done much as it is done for Current Suggestions or Sysop Nominations, with options being For, Against, and Abstain. Simple majority rules. When a page is up for voting, a new header should be made here on the talk page linked to the page in question. Thus, the following header (and official voting space for the page): --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 22:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Blackmore

  1. For - A well-coded page and a good read. --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 22:24, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
  2. Abstain - As much as the Battle for Blackmore was an awesome event, I don't think, with the current state of the game (with Ridleybank currently being a ghost town and easy claiming for either side), that this article should be featured just yet. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 02:53, 19 July 2010 (BST)
    You do realize this vote is almost a year old, right? And that the general concensus is to do the FAs in alphabetical order? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Red Hawk One (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.
    That, I never saw. All I noticed was that this is on the talk page, so I merely replied to it... >< --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 03:03, 19 July 2010 (BST)

Nomnomnominations

Lets get the show on the road, I guess. Anyone nominate a beautiful article for featured status?

I'll throw a few into the mix that I enjoyed reading.

Maybe even First Siege of Caiger Mall - I think from a historical standpoint it is a good read. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 02:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll throw in NecroWatch, because I think it's a good mix of fluff, encourages survivors to take risks and be proactive, and in its mission tries to get more people to contribute to the Wiki. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 02:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

We should probably wait 'till we have the criteria up, and the voting page before nominating things. Silly peoples! --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 03:06, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops? Sorry! ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 03:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
No, no, no - it has to start with Om, and then you go nomnomnomnom (i.e. omnomnomnomnom)! --ZsL 05:31, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Certainly need some criteria, though nothing too stringent, if it's generally awesome, throw it in there. Also, this voting business, are we going to vote for articles that are of a FA quality, and then choose one each week? Or are we going to have a pool of random articles people collect, of which somebody chooses a couple to be voted on each week? Or something else, or what? We have no system goddamnit! PS: DRR, are you sure you mean RNG, or do you mean RNG (Old Testament)? Just to clarify for my benefit, as I think the current RNG page is kinda crappy TBH so it seems odd to suggest it. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The old one has NPOV and it not-being-an-article kind of problem. For FAs we could:
  1. Vote FAs from a pool each week, the winner being the FA article. (the Pool of articles aren't FAs yet)
  2. Create a pool of FAs, then have a vote for which one will be on the ComPort/Main Page.
  3. Have two votes, one to determine FAs and the other to determine which/when they get to be on the ComPort/Main Page.
Yar? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined towards method 1. People could just add to the pool at will, or just add it to a pre-pool list which then gets pooled if nobody adds any substantial objections after a week or something. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

1 as well. Of course, the pool will have to be set before being voted on. So Pool A is created, voting starts, but some people want some other articles in the pool. Therefore, it would go in Pool B, which would be voted on next week. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
1. But what to nominate? Do i want informative/historic/or ALIM? Peer reviewed buildings?, The Fall of Monroeville Mall, Danger Alley? --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 21:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Main Namespace articles. If it's an information page, like a location, glossary item, suburb, historical events etc then it should be included. Groups, user pages and things like projects shouldn't be included.--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:14, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
How boring! There are some pretty awesome group pages out there. --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 21:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I can understand why active groups shouldn't be featured (unfair to other groups to advertize one on the main page), but what about dead and especially historical groups? --Midianian¦T¦DS¦SP¦ 21:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, here's a question: what is the purpose of the FA? Is it just supposed to be fluffy? Or it it supposed to be a resource to show people pages they might not stumble upon? I mean, a really interesting location article is neat and all, but (and no offense to anyone)... who cares? Featuring a well-written article on the Lawson Arms isn't honestly going to enrich anyone's wiki or gameplay experience, it's just a five-minute distraction and maybe it gets a laugh. Now, if that's the point, then fine-- I'm on board. But if the purpose is to enrich wiki-goers' UD experience, then we shouldn't be so squeamish about letting group pages go on the list. After all, they still have to pass a vote to become an FA. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 22:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't see why we can't have pages ranging from interesting locations articles to awesome backwater pages to some interesting write-up of history. Active group pages would just create so much damned drama though, totally not worth the effort. Historical groups I wouldn't have a problem with, though I can't imagine many of their pages are actually that interesting, the group and their history might be, but the FA is only going to direct your to their page. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
But this is a wiki for a game about a zombie apocalypse. Any truly NPOV articles are scarce and probably not that exciting. The beginning of the ALIM page isn't NPOV. Even building and suburb pages have a backstory that was made up by somebody. The RRF page is very well written, as is the Randoms page, etc. It's a shame not to have these eligible for featured article status, although creating criteria would become a lot harder. --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 23:12, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I just don't think it's worth the potential drama, but if others think it worthwhile, well, that's the whole point of generating consensus from discussion. :) Hopefully it would work out. NPOV-wise, I think it's as big a problem as you say, there are plenty of articles that don't even have significant NPOV concerns in the backwaters of the wiki. Several articles might be better with some sort of obvious bias anyway. If people don't think it's worthy of being FA because it goes too far or whatever, then it won't get voted in. Finally, is ALIM the best we can do for interesting UD related pages? Surly there's better things than a disturbingly thoroughly complied list of cock jokes out there. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 23:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Historical Groups I suppose, though I don't know how many will make it. I'm sure we'll find FA quality articles, or perhaps we'll make them. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:49, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
"Featured Articles are considered to be the best articles on the Urban Dead Wiki, as determined by the Wiki's users. Before being listed here, articles are voted on according to our featured article criteria, which include strong writing skills, neutrality (for NPOV articles), originality, style, stability (article is not subject to ongoing edit wars) and all-around awesomeness." How's that for criteria? Too many adjectives? It would cover all the articles, at least. I understand the concern about drama, but like I said before, there are some sweet pages out there that deserve a spotlight. Can you prevent a group from stacking the ballot box? --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 23:30, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I like those criteria. As for stacking the ballot box, I don't know if it could be prevented. Maybe we could try something like a rotating format? What I mean is, we could be express in the voting rules that the FA must follow the pattern of pro-zombie, neutral, pro-survivor, historical, repeat? So even if a group wanted to ballot stuff to promote their group or agenda, they could really only get their way once a rotation? How long does an article get FA props on the front page, anyway? ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 04:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
A week by the sound of it, but I'm more inclined to go for a month, at leased while its trialed. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 05:04, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Added some stuff. I know it's missing stuff, but what kind of "style" are we looking for in an article? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't penalise long articles, the article should be comprehensive IMO. I would also add a caveat to the NPOV bit "where applicable", not all articles are bound to be NPOV, and some don't even the possibility of having a typical POV bias. Anyway, picking on some of Paddy's adjectives, I'd add
  • Well Written: The article uses good English and is written in a clear and highly readable style.
  • Generally Awesome: Here at the wiki, we're after stuff that's awesome.
-- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Protectionism

Here's an issue: Will we be forced to protect articles that make it onto Featured Articles? I'm assuming we will. What if it is something that is subject to update or change? DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 05:04, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Damn good question. Obviously we can't protect NPOV articles, but maybe we compare the article that was voted on and featured to the same article when it rolls around to be featured a second time? Make sure all changes conform to the FA criteria? Assuming we use NPOV articles at all. --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 16:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I think the article should satisfy the FA criteria first, before becoming FAs. Protection, semi, or full is unnecessary for the current FA unless it is being targeted for vandalism. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:34, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
We probably should semi-protect it as a preventative measure. I don't think we want a 3-page goatse-ing the thing. --ZsL 17:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
We're talking temporary protection in most cases though, right? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 19:36, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Temporary protection makes sense-- but if FA articles are up for a month, that might be a downside. If they're up for a week, the protection for that time isn't so dangerous. At the same time, if they're only FA for a week, casual wiki-goers might not see them like regulars would. I'd say one way or the other, we should incorporate a "Previously Featured..." aspect, even if those pages were no longer protected. That way casual users could browse. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 21:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Sure, lots of wikis do that. It would have to be a link underneath the FA though, otherwise clogging issues. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I'd say weekly seems good for FA. A month is damned long and we'd get a mere 12 articles a year from it. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I was thinking temporary protection as well. The page's editing should be limited to the autoconfirmed users, the FA could get messed up by vandals or inexperienced newbies. --ZsL 01:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Me too. Limit the editing to autoconfirmed users, perhaps sysops only (I would prefer the former, but the latter may be a necessity sometimes.) Once we get our Mediawiki upgrade, we should haz ability to set timelimits on protections. Linkthewindow  Talk  12:15, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Asking for trouble

How about guests spots? An evening with (Insert name here) get a well known guest speaker in to speak on a subject. people can ask questions, and the lecturer can decide which he answers (Yes. Ignoring trolling.) Wonderful. Rooster hosts an evening on parsing etc. A DEM representatvie to talk about why there so maligned. A helpful little gnome presents an urban dead mini game workshop. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 20:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggested something like this in the very beginning, and was totally ignored because I'm so good-looking and clever and everyone hates me for it. You're not as good-looking and clever, so maybe now they'll listen. --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 20:35, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Though I wasn't around back then, I would get behind this. Though, just to be safe, I am going to completely ignore Paddy's support of it ;) ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 21:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
So, what would it be called? And how would it be set up? Would it be announced on the Main Page and CP, possible elsewhere? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:47, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Maybe "Featured User," to compliment "Featured Article?" Or if it's more about someone expounding on a topic, something like "Featured Topic?" I just wonder if it would be a trial-by-fire for any civility policy we might adopt. ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 21:52, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Featured Topic sounds good. I think a month would do for that, though. I don't think we'll be able to make as many as Featured Articles. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
A month seems a tad long, fortnightly or twice monthly perhaps?-- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 22:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
My suggestion about how it would work: people can suggest a topic that they want to "moderate" (not in the forum moderator way, but more like a academic moderator way). These suggestions are collected one cycle in advance, and just like suggestions, people can vote on them-- but each cycle, users are asked to only vote once. So, let's say that there are four topics suggested for the upcoming cycle. We close the page for new suggestions and open it for voting. Each user can only vote for one keep (the one they want), and one kill (the topic they are most opposed to). Votes are tallied, the highest vote-getter will be the FT for the next cycle, and the one with the most kills is now ineligible to be re-suggested (I'm getting to that in a moment).
The user who suggested the topic "owns" the topic; they will start off the conversation and then moderate. The topic page itself should be created as a sub-page of their user talk page (so, for instance, if I won for the topic of "Bananas," I would create User_Talk:Extropymine/Bananas to host the topic) so they have the right to remove offensive comments and trolling and drama without breaking wiki rules. It is the responsibility of the moderator to balance allowing dissenting opinions with removing trolls. Since it's on their user talk page, there is no arbitration (though if we have a civility policy, there might be mediation). The topic is their property, so what they risk by handling it badly is that the discussion will die and no one will vote for their suggestions in the future.
Any suggestion that did not win (but was not killed) can be re-suggested again in a future cycle. Would that work? ~ extropymine Talk | NW | 4Corners 23:23, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I imagined it working as such. During the voting period for the next featured article a user could say "I'd like to run a discussion on blah" If thats voted as the feature, they run it, if not its up to them if they want to reapply. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 11:32, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Because I love stealing stuff from Wikipedia

I've just uploaded this file from Wikipedia (located here, and because it's pretty darn smalls File:LinkFA-star.png. We can use it to detonate a featured article, ether here or on general listings.

Sadly, this policy prevents us using a version of this template to place a "FA star" outside the page area. However, does a featured article show a "clear need to violate the policy."? Then we may be able to place that star after all (and it will make it a lot easier to recognize for casual browsers.)

Also, a star like they have on Wikipedia is a lot less ugly then a big template saying "Featured Article," and doesn't interrupt the flow of the page as much.

Thoughts? Linkthewindow  Talk  09:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we want to detonate articles ;). There isn't really a need to do this, so using "clear need to violate the policy" would be stretching it. However, I doubt there'd be much opposition to a policy allowing page information icons (such as featured article, protected etc) as an exception. --Midianian¦T¦DS¦SP¦ 10:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
As do I. I don't really see if it's really worth the effort to go through here for what's really only going to effect a few pages. I may however. Protection icons could be quite useful. Linkthewindow  Talk  11:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why it has to violate the page area policy. If it's just stuck in the top right of the page area for instance? Am I missing something obvious? -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 12:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not exactly sure what you are saying. Anyway, on Wikipedia (example article,) the FA star is placed in the upper right right next to the title - it's outside the page area. That said, if someone can figure out a way to have this star in the far upper right without violating the policy (ie: it's still within the page area, just below the title,) the free cookie for them.
Or we could just conduct a straw poll here and see if the community's okay with the policy being violated. It means we can bypass A/PD and still get our star. Linkthewindow  Talk  12:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
You could stick it in the top right (of the page area) very easily with a div I think. I'm going to go double check though because you've made me very uncertain all of a sudden. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 12:15, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't be a problem to put it there, but it could easily disturb the page layout. --Midianian¦T¦DS¦SP¦ 12:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Good point, the div wouldn't get stuff to wrap around it, in that case, what about just floating it to the right using a table? If called at the top of the page it ought to work fine I think. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 12:38, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why A/PD should be bypassed. If we're going to vote about it anyway, why not do it there? --Midianian¦T¦DS¦SP¦ 12:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
If we are just doing it for featured articles, it's too much bother. However, if we want to go for protection icons, other administration icons, etc, the we probably will need a policy. Linkthewindow  Talk  12:30, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't see the bother. At least three days of discussion (which can be spent on discussing whether to also put protections there) and then voting. Pretty much what would happen here. --Midianian¦T¦DS¦SP¦ 13:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not a big deal to add a little image icon on the top right of the page, that policy doesn't exist to prohibit that. It exists for these things. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 19:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I know it exists to prevent all that annoying image spam they have on user pages on Wikipedia. I don't think anyone would mind if we had a star like this, but it would violate the letter of the policy (although not the spirit.) Might as well get consensus here or on A/PD first. Linkthewindow  Talk  22:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Consensus, don't think anyone will complain. There's a way, on this wiki, to get that image to link to the article without a redirect. I figured it out stole it once, but I've forgotten. edit: it's in this code, figure out later--  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Done, by the way. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:52, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Types of Articles

What type of articles would you look to put here? Is the page supposed to be dedicated to useful, informative, or flat out amusing articles? If this were to start getting heavy use, personally, I'd prefer to not see user and group pages come up. Would event pages be eligible even though there's the nice historical events section? --Johnny Bass 20:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we're still trying to figure that out. Some are leaning toward NPOV articles only, others think active group pages should be included. Check out the Nomnomnominations heading for the conversation so far. --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 20:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we should stick group and user pages up as long as they agree with the criteria we put together. There are several very well done pages out there, particularly things like the RRF pages and Gnome's user page, that deserve a wee gold star in the corner. -- Cheese 16:07, 10 April 2009 (BST)

So the general consensus is any article already considered a Good Article, as well as group and/or user pages that are well-put together and such? We really need to decide upon this and update the main FA/V page with whatever criterion we are deciding upon. --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 22:34, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Ball Rolling

Ok, things seem to have hung up for a little while. So, a quick summary of the discussions above:

  • Articles (Not-yet FA standard) would probably be entered into a pool, with the winner of a vote becoming a FA and and featured on this page & main.
  • Articles would probably be featured for a week, though maybe a month trial until things get going.
  • Articles would likely be semi-protected as a precautionary measure, and fully if that becomes necessary.
  • We'll probably use those FA stars you get on the English wiki, if people don't mind a minor addendum to the content outside the page area policy.
  • People are split over articles being NPOV/minimal bias and allowing group pages (which are obviously biased) since some are of good quality.
  • There's a few notes on the FA page header about criteria we're after, these can still be changed though.

I figure we may as well start putting in a few nominations since we've got an outline of where we're going. We can fix things on the fly and we're under no time limit so things can still be fixed if there is a big problem. Since we're still not sure about group pages yet, I think people should add them to the pool for now so we have a few ready if consensus suggests they're permissible. So chuck down some nominations and raise any other issues, and maybe we'll put FA/V to use in due course.

To start with, here's a few from the above discussions:

-- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 21:33, 2 April 2009 (BST)

Right. I don't think Lawson arms is "good enough". "You know you've..." is already linked on the new CP. However, I always liked groove theory. 2 of the others I wrote, so my vote must go to the Battle of Blackmore --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 21:59, 2 April 2009 (BST)
OOH OOH OOH OOH OOH Trenchcoater! DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 01:34, 3 April 2009 (BST)
Nah, it's a bit unprofessional, if funny. My vote goes to NecroWatch (once we get this rolling.) Linkthewindow  Talk  07:09, 3 April 2009 (BST)
Wait till we smash the FA/V page open. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 07:33, 3 April 2009 (BST)
Just want a pool of stuff Link, no need to cast votes for anything yet.
A bunch of obvious ones:

I made some changes. Mmm? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:30, 3 April 2009 (BST)

Im still not sure about NPOV. You lose a lot of great pages. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 20:41, 3 April 2009 (BST)
I think that's worked in under the criteria. It's basically just a guideline, the criteria is. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:51, 3 April 2009 (BST)
Yoda you are. --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 20:57, 3 April 2009 (BST)
Unintentional, it was. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:01, 3 April 2009 (BST)
My opinion: I have nothing against pages that need a certain amount of POV in order to have a flair and style to make them interesting. But we shouldn't go around ignoring the issue because NPOV is key to many areas in the wiki and so articles who can manage it without compromising the article are likely to be good, so we wouldn't want them shunned because people prefer to vote for articles with bais towards their preferred side.
Anyway, I'm not buying into the changes on FA/V. A Yes/No vote suggests we're just promoting articles to FA-standard but not featuring them. An article with the most yes votes wins (I assume, you need to make this clear), but if even one person has a damned good 'no' vote because the article is unsuitable, then featuring it is a bad idea. My impression was going to be a "One vote per user, vote for your favourite" system with people flagging up pages they think are unsuitable for FA (pages they dislike, but are FA-worthy, don't get any 'No' votes or anything). I don't have anything against a Ye/No vote to promote an article pool into FA-class articles with another vote for the FA-class to be featured this week, but that seems much more effort. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 21:11, 3 April 2009 (BST)
So, like 'crat elections? Except articles, not people. I'd prefer if people got the article to "FA quality" before nominating it, though. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 23:47, 3 April 2009 (BST)
In a sense. More effort but allows good articles to be identified as such at any time (Say a week's worth of voting after submission by any user). The articles which are later featured are picked from any good article not yet featured. If we do this, my only request is that we standardize some terms fastish so we know what the fuck we all mean with these different article qualities and voting statuses and stuff. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 00:48, 4 April 2009 (BST)
Oh, yeah. Updated. Feel free to make any tweaks. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:19, 8 April 2009 (BST)

So are we going with method 1 or 2?

Method 1:

  • A bunch of articles are pooled.
  • Articles from the pool are voted on.
  • Article with most votes becomes FA.

Method 2:

  • Articles are submitted whenever for consideration to be good articles.
  • Articles over which no major issues are raised and show support are promoted to good articles.
  • Some good articles are pooled.
  • Articles from the pool are voted on.
  • Article with most votes becomes FA.

-- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 15:24, 10 April 2009 (BST)

I'd say method 1. Much simpler and easier to get things going. (Sorry for the late joining in of discussion, I've been meaning to come and say hi for a while =)) -- Cheese 15:59, 10 April 2009 (BST)
Actually after reading the bit above a bit more thoroughly I quite like the second one. That way we can weed out the crap articles and avoid any meatpuppetry that could arise in Method 1. Fair enough we could get some in Method 2 but it would be on "good" articles as opposed to any random one. -- Cheese 16:04, 10 April 2009 (BST)
What I think. They'll still be meatpuppetry, but at least it won't be negative meatpuppetry (people force-voting an article out,) or if it happens, it's less likely. Linkthewindow  Talk  16:36, 10 April 2009 (BST)
I like method two. Would we want a different page for that? Or a section laid out, or a subpage of FA? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 17:13, 10 April 2009 (BST)
I guess you could have a section on the current FA and FA/V pages. So a list of "good articles" (or whatever) below the FA's on the FA page, and the GA voting/discussion section below the FA voting on FA/V. Either that or create it's own pages: GA and GA/V. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 16:41, 13 April 2009 (BST)

Page Ownership

How are you planning to get templates and categories onto owned pages when the owners can remove them at will? -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 20:55, 3 April 2009 (BST)

They aren't going on user pages or group pages (that aren't historical) so there shouldn't be a problem. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 20:56, 3 April 2009 (BST)
Even historical groups retain page ownership, they could even remove the historical template if they chose to. My point is, unlike wikipedia where every candidate page is considered a community page, you are very likely to run afoul of page ownership guidelines fast. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 21:29, 3 April 2009 (BST)
While I guess they could do that, I can't imagine a rational reason to object to it. In the case a group does have some bizarre reason for not wanting a small and out-of-the-way star on their page, being listed in a category and being listed here, then they can just not add their own page as a nomination or note their objection if nominated by another user. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 21:37, 3 April 2009 (BST)
You are answering your own question. Let them remove it if they want, no one says its necessary to keep it on. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 05:43, 5 April 2009 (BST)
It's irrelevant, no one will be that petty. Don't work from the assumption that the community are dicks and understand that it's a non-issue anyway. Page ownership isn't the end all be all of the wiki, it's just a secondary tool to help with sorting out when an edit is or isn't in good faith, it's really nothing more. --Karekmaps?! 17:02, 10 April 2009 (BST)

Journalism

I think we should promote the creation of engaging, humorous and informative journals. What do you guys think? I would vouch for a journal which made me laugh. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 04:51, 11 April 2009 (BST)

I would Yarp to that. It would need to be pretty well written and not anywhere close to being trenchy bullshit to get through but there are a few decent ones that I've seen. -- Cheese 18:43, 12 April 2009 (BST)
Yeah, I mean ones that use it for entertainment more than guiding noobs. I haven't read through any besides Grims, but I know there must be some really witty and clever ones out there. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 04:19, 13 April 2009 (BST)

A Summary

I think this is dying again. =/ Ok. We appear to have made some headway towards getting this together with the main issues being the following:

  • How shall we be picking said featured articles
    • Rooster has proposed two methods:
      • Number 1
        • A bunch of articles are pooled.
        • Articles from the pool are voted on.
        • Article with most votes becomes FA.
      • Number 2
        • Articles are submitted whenever for consideration to be good articles.
        • Articles over which no major issues are raised and show support are promoted to good articles.
        • Some good articles are pooled.
        • Articles from the pool are voted on.
        • Article with most votes becomes FA.
    • While more complicated, method 2 appears to be the best option as that way only the genuinely good articles will make it as a featured article as opposed to any page getting meat puppetered there.
  • Should group, journal and user pages be able to be featured?
    • There is some discussion over this with the consensus leaning towards these pages being included as long as they are deemed to be of a good enough quality to become a featured article.

And that's about it I think. Once we get these issues cleared up I think we can get started on pooling and voting on featured articles. =) Which would be good because Wiki news has been rather bare these past couple of weeks. =( -- Cheese 15:38, 19 April 2009 (BST)

Um. The second one. --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 16:17, 19 April 2009 (BST)
Second. Should be more discussion oriented for good articles, though. I won't be around much to finish this, so someone else has to take over. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:50, 19 April 2009 (BST)
Second. As Gnome, so articles that are good (but not great) can still get recognition.
As for the groups, I'm find with them being included, as long as the groups themselves don't mind (obviously.) Any text promoting the article should be NPOV about the group. Linkthewindow  Talk  07:52, 20 April 2009 (BST)
I'm inclined to method 2 myself. I'm also for allowing group, journal and user pages if they are deemed worthy. -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 18:11, 20 April 2009 (BST)
Ok. I think that we're pretty much decided on Method 2 and on group pages getting in if they're thought to be good enough. Anyone got any objections to this or should we start work on step one for good article consideration? -- Cheese 22:15, 21 April 2009 (BST)
I reckon the silence means "Get to it". -- User:The Rooster RoosterDragon User talk:The Rooster 13:11, 29 April 2009 (BST)
I agree. =p Let's get this ball rolling. -- Cheese 19:16, 29 April 2009 (BST)

Nomination n stuff

The Pluto Press--/~Rakuen~\Talk Domo.gif I Still Love Grim 02:19, 30 April 2009 (BST)

Take it outside, Godboy. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 03:22, 1 May 2009 (BST)

Criteria Addition

After seeing the Shoemakers nomination, I think we should add something about formatting to the criteria for FAs. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 03:24, 1 May 2009 (BST)

Front Page?

Aside from the fact that I don't see any activity to do with the Featured Article, why isn't it on the Front Page? Surely it should be on the Front Page, along with "Did You Know?", or is this planned, when it gets started up?

--RahrahCome join the #party!22:57, 3 July 2009 (BST)

...

Why isn't the Malton Incident on the FA list? --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ #nerftemplatedsigs 01:56, 24 July 2010 (BST)

Because no one nominated it for Good Articles status yet. Care to do the honors? ~ Red Hawk One Talk | space for lease 02:01, 24 July 2010 (BST)
The fact that it's a WALL OF TEXT OF DOOM might have something to do with it too. —Aichon— 03:15, 24 July 2010 (BST)
If it was less wall of text and broken up better (maybe even just image alignment?) I would support a GA vote for it. And yes, I am too lazy/busy to do it myself. --Maverick Talk - OBR Praise Knowledge! 404 09:21, 24 July 2010 (BST)

Awesome!

Good stuff! And some of this stuff needs archiving. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 03:03, 25 July 2010 (BST)

Manually changing these...

is dumb when we can rotate the text and images automatically using switches. How often are they being rotated now? -MHSstaff 18:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it is two weeks, which means it takes about 3/4 a year to cycle through all 17/18. We should make it more frequent. Like every day. -MHSstaff 18:43, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
A day version is ready. To make it more fair, we would probably want to rotate it through the 12 months. It would be similar to the weather templates that change the temperature and weather type based on month and day. -MHSstaff 19:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
I like the idea of an atomically updating UDWiki:Featured Articles. My only qualms about it are 1) What happens when we reach more than 31 FAs? 2) Is it easy enough for your typical wiki user to update with new FAs as they are voted in? ~Vsig.png 20:37, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
There are a couple of ways you could do it. You pregenerate the templates so that you have a different template for the number of articles, and a master switch template so that the wiki user just puts in the number of articles as a variable, and it takes care of the rest. Like {{FADaySwitch|18}} would use the 18 article version, and <nowiki>{{FADaySwitch|19}} would use the 19 day one. The 31-day bridge you cross when you get to it. It's not like FAs are being added willy-nilly now. They would have to make a new FA blurb though. -MHSstaff 21:14, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Right, but what i meant is that when it is time to place a new Featured Article in the queue to be cycled in, where would they place it? It isn't really clear where it goes right now. I think I could figure it out, but without instructions, your average user will not know where to go with it. ~Vsig.png 21:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
You could make a queue page with links to the unedited versions of UDWiki:Featured Articles/FA##, and instruct them to make a new blurb in the next one. You then instruct them to update the template from {{FADaySwitch|XX}} to {{FADaySwitch|YY}} in the FA page. The people who are likely to do this could probably figure it out if we gave them a basic how to instruction page. I doubt like a new user will be like "Dude...I am going to edit me some FA pages today. Dude." -MHSstaff 21:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Keep in mind that right now, someone has to make a blurb. Currently, it is placed in the FA page in the no include section. The major difference would be it would be placed instead in its own page and they would have to update a template to call the right number of articles. -MHSstaff 21:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
You'd probably also want to make a master list one that uses the same master switch idea, and display all the blurbs on the FA page in a noinclude section. That way, you make three changes when you add a new one: 1) Make a new FA## page, 2) Change FADaySwitchXX to match the right number of articles on the FA page 3) Change FAAllSwitchXX to match the number of articles on the FA page. Not too bad. -MHSstaff 21:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm...welll maybe you could write up some instructions on how to add new entires to the list and post it here. I'm having a hard time following right now but that's likely because work is kicking my ass right now and I want to go home. If I see a visual I'd probably have a better time understanding. ~Vsig.png 22:36, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Talking with Aichon, there a couple of problems ranging from 1) what to do after a cycle ends, where you repeat some of the articles until the next year, but not all of them and 2) this actually being more trouble than its worth. Moving this to the backburner for now. -MHSstaff 20:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

New Stuff

We've had some new GA's since last time around, including weather and blackmore 4(04). --RosslessnessWant a Location Image? 17:17, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

oops

someone please finish this or remind me to do it later... i'll be unable to keep working on this for the next four or five hours :\ --hagnat 15:35, 22 July 2011 (BST)

Has it occurred to you that making this template does not make it easier in ANY way? We were just copying and pasting sections of text into specific parts anyway. -- ϑanceϑanceℜevolution 02:53, 23 July 2011 (BST)

Reviving FAs/GAs

Hey y'all! So I've decided to take on the task of trying to get the Featured Articles/Good Articles process moving, especially since the Featured Articles voting process hasn't been used since 2009 and the Good Articles process seems to have died as well. To this end, I have a few things I'd like people to comment on.

The first is to ask why the process is two-tiered? Most of the discussion above concerns ways of moving articles to "Good" status and then "Featured" status. However, only one article (Weather) is currently a Good Article without also being Featured; this is because the Featured Article voting process has simply been abandoned with Good Articles being automatically promoted. To me it seems the process would be easier if there were just one layer, Featured Articles, and this would make sense as the wiki is rather small (19,389 articles) and the majority of those are rather short.

The next is, would people be up for a major addition of voting candidates (many of them listed above) and a marathon voting process? To me it seems having a whole bunch added at once would make voting easier.

Lastly, I might be doing a reorganization of the scheduling/arrangement of the Featured Articles page, so we can keep things rotating even without more voted articles and to put the Featured Articles into relevant categories ("classes", "guides", "events" etc.) Any thoughts on that?

Thanks so much everyone, and please comment! Bob Moncrief EBD•W! 16:27, 15 July 2012 (BST)

I think the intention of FAs vs. GAs was that FAs went on the main page or community portal and GAs didn't. GAs are basically FAs or "Featured Good Articles." The distinction isn't important nor does it add any function. There's no real new layer of quality that separates FA from GA. Keeping to just FA seems a good option.
Voting all at once would be the thing to do. People would lose interest after a week of voting.
We should rotate the FAs from time to time. Maybe it's "unprofessional" if it's the same article on the main page the whole time. I don't know if we could manage this automatically. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 16:55, 15 July 2012 (BST)
MHSStaff amd I tried our hand at automatic updating a while back using switch templates (see two headers up). It ended up complicating the project too much (adding new FAs into the mix was a pain) and so it was abandoned. I'm sure we were just overthinking it at the time and there is probably a simpler way. A semi-automatic system might be a solution. Each FA would be assigned a number and we'd use a switch template to cycle through the numbers. A user would still need to make an update, but instead of a big copy/paste ordeal, it would just require changing one numner to the next.
I'm totally for new FA votes and forgoing GA voting altogether. ~Vsig.png 18:02, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
I'd be willing to keep track of rotating the FAs manually once we've got some new ones voted in. I'll wait for a few more comments of endorsement before making the changes needed to bypass Good Article voting. Bob Moncrief EBD•W! 18:11, 15 July 2012 (BST)
Regarding automating the process, it really doesn't work well unless the number of FAs lines up against a magic word that we can use in the switch, and we also need to guarantee that the number of FAs doesn't change too often. If we could set it up so that there were exactly 53 FAs (one for each potential week in the year), it'd make things significantly easier to code (we could base the switch on the {{CURRENTWEEK}} magic word), and it would also mean no repeats or some getting shown more often than others (except for the 53rd, which would only be shown on some years). I'd also suggest that each FA page have its mini-blurb embedded in the page itself with an <includeonly> as part of its fulfillment for being an FA, that way the page itself can simply be included without having to paste mini-blurbs into templates or managing them in any way (and then this page, rather than housing all of the mini-blurbs, would instead just contain links to all of the FAs). All told, the template itself would only take about 55 lines of extremely simple code. Again though, this is all dependent on having a number of FAs that matches up with a magic word for an aspect of the calendar. If you want to do 31 FAs, one for each day of the month, that works too, for example. —Aichon— 20:02, 15 July 2012 (BST)
Yep, those are all the issues we ran into last time. Any Magic Word we use puts a limit on the number of articles we can use or creates an uneven distribution. It also makes it difficult to add new FAs to the mix. I do like the idea of creating FA blurbs on each article. I really think a semi-automatic process that simplifies the updating processwill be the way to go. ~Vsig.png 20:34, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Most of the blurbs are already setup for automation here. Aichon's idea to have the blurb in an include section in the actual article is a better idea though. -MHSstaff 04:25, 16 July 2012 (BST)
Let's see what number we end up with and go from there. If it works out nicely, might as well Switch template it. There probably won't be many or any new FA additions if we go through an FA voting marathon. Maybe. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 04:41, 16 July 2012 (BST)

Rotating is done on a whim at the minute really. I'd love to see some new articles nominated. Plus its been updated since 2009. 2010 for blackmore 404 being an example. --RossWHO????ness 17:16, 15 July 2012 (BST)

Right, there have been GA votes since then, but the only FA promotions were done without actual voting (unless it occurred somewhere on the Wiki I can't locate?) Bob Moncrief EBD•W! 18:11, 15 July 2012 (BST)
Would this work with the software version we're using? No need to maintain unless the article pool grows, gives a random article at each pageview (purges may be needed but so it goes). When I fall, I'll weep for happiness 12:50, 16 July 2012 (BST)
Looks like it uses Template:Random number, which itself uses math expressions (which we don't have here) to generate random articles. It would be pretty awesome if we had a RNG, but we don't. Grr! Argh! *shaking fist* ~Vsig.png 14:59, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Lifting that restriction on articles under group pages would open up some more interesting candidates for GA/FA inclusion. -MHSstaff 02:51, 17 July 2012 (BST)

I say pick 26 of them, double up the cases and use the currentweek for the switch, crack open a beer and call it a day. -MHSstaff 02:34, 17 July 2012 (BST)

Bob, I overlooked something before about categorizing things. Are you planning on running multiple featured articles at once, i.e Featured Guide, Featured Event, etc? If so, I think the idea is interesting but I'd like to know more about how it would appear on the main page. ~Vsig.png 01:27, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I didn't mean the categorizing to have any effect on the Main Page or the way FAs would be dealt with. I meant something like how the FAs on Wikipedia here are categorized into broad topics, like "Biology", "History", "Music" etc. So it would just be putting headers into the UDWiki:Featured Articles page to group the articles by "Guides", "Locations", "Events", "Gameplay", "Classes" etc. Bob Moncrief EBD•W! 17:02, 30 July 2012 (BST)

Putting in 2 quick cents. I've done a fair deal to maintain this system from time to time, however broken it was from the start, but I wouldn't mind seeing it go. It's just apparent that the standard of the UDWiki community is too high to allow certain categories (groups, etc.) to become good articles, as well as the fact that we all are expecting a very high standard of quality for the good articles to pass. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I personally like it very well the way it is, and I myself governed it for a while to maintain almost flawless level of quality to be allowed into GA. But the sad reality is that if there are not enough articles to cycle FAs for even a couple of years (even when cycling articles every quarter) then it's not worth it. I'd remove them from the main page altogether. If you asked me of my personal opinion, I'd prefer to keep them and lower the standard an inch to allow a few more articles but that won't solve the problem, and I know that without some sort of FA-writing drive (like the location one ross had a year ago, which I would definitely participate in) we should remove them altogether. Not delete obviously, but remove them from the main page, especially whilst space is apparently precious at the moment between it, community content and "this month in UD" section. I'm drunk. DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION (TALK | CONTRIBS) 14:15, 30 July 2012 (BST)

That's what I am talking about. Let's go rogue, dump that hippy, tree-hugging no group pages rule crap, and take this to the next level. Wiki is about to get real. MHSstaff 01:49, 31 July 2012 (BST)
Not to derail the current direction of this discussion, but we're actually quite set to have a few different categories of featured content. Featured Guides are voted on as are historical events and groups. Problem with groups of course is whether we include them based on content alone or something else, like (gasp) historical status. I'd even be for opening up voting on featured images. ~Vsig.png 02:44, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Not to re-rail the tangential discussion, but I'm totally up for allowing Userspace pages. There are quite a few good ones out there. —Aichon— 03:12, 31 July 2012 (BST)
What do you have in mind? The only Userspace page I have heard mentioned is Gnome's game. I think this is a good place for other suggestions too. Bob Moncrief EBD•W! 06:20, 31 July 2012 (BST)
How about Zombo Tracker? Where else can you get your daily zombie weather, see a sortable list of targets the RRF has hit (current to 2011), and track the horde's migratory pattern (sortable by year)? -MHSstaff 17:08, 31 July 2012 (BST)
Or a companion piece to the Blackmore:404 event, one that provides a broadened perspective and fills in missing details, allowing the reader to decide for themselves what really happened that pivotal month. -MHSstaff 17:30, 31 July 2012 (BST)
It should be by content; the page/article needs to stand on its own from a quality perspective, IMO. -MHSstaff 16:55, 31 July 2012 (BST)

Progress

OK, so I've closed down Good Articles. I'm still proofreading some articles in preparation for submission to FA voting (if anyone would like to help, articles to be proofed are here), but I expect to submit them sometime in the next few days. Thanks! Bob Moncrief EBD•W! 17:57, 28 July 2012 (BST)

Waving around my Crat status like it's some kind of badge of authority

Hi. Unlike DDR I'm not drunk, but I'm a bit concerned about some of this. Both MHS and Bob have listed in their own ways articles I feel should never be used as featured articles, because, in all honesty they, like my spelling, are terrible. The first thing we need to do, if we are reviving this is to set up some kind of criteria. We may be merging the categories, but featured articles, should still be good articles. The original vote meant checking spelling, styling pages up, cross referencing and rewriting them to be clear and informative. We need to make sure we don't lose that. --RossWHO????ness 18:22, 31 July 2012 (BST)

Looks like Gnome already transferred the existing GA voting criteria to the FA voting page. He mentioned he wasn't done, though. Guess maybe he put on the brakes when "more consensus" was requested. So...is there more criteria (or less restrictive criteria as suggested above) than we originally used to determine Good Articles that we need for Featured? ~Vsig.png 19:10, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
What criteria do you suggest then? -MHSstaff 19:15, 31 July 2012 (BST)
I've been trying to check spelling, styling & clarity on the articles I'm planning to submit for voting. I haven't really touched content very much because most of them are on subjects I know little about (like events that happened before I joined last year, or zombie tactics when I've only really played as a survivor). My hope was that in the process of voting we'd hammer out which articles the community feels qualify. I was also hoping that the voting would spur those who like an article to help clean it up to standard. I'm definitely not expecting all, or even most, of the articles I'm submitting to pass, but I think looking at which ones do and don't will help clarify what we want our standards to be. Does that make any sense? Bob Moncrief EBD•W! 20:01, 31 July 2012 (BST)
I think you have done a great job proofing and prepping a large pool of possible candidates; problems with content (should) come out when we decide the next crop (and reevaluate the current ones) of FAs. Ross just likes derailing the fun train every now and then before it rolls into party station. -MHSstaff 20:12, 31 July 2012 (BST)
The original criteria for GA was for the article to be neutral, complete, well-written, and awesome. The first criteria was not just thrown out with the bath water, but was launched into low-level, Earth orbit to burn up on reentry when the Battle of Blackmore was voted in. The other three criteria are so arbitrary that anything can (and has) become a GA/FA. Ross can nail me on NPOV if he wants, but then BoB (and arguably BoB:404) needs to go if we want to even pretend approaching this with some sort of consistency with regard to the metrics. -MHSstaff 20:30, 31 July 2012 (BST)
Has there ever been a vote for an article's featured status to be removed? A cursory check on my part came up with nothing. Bob Moncrief EBD•W! 20:34, 31 July 2012 (BST)
I don't believe so. -MHSstaff 20:48, 31 July 2012 (BST)
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