User:Marskell/FAs

Listed here are the articles I have successfully nominated at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. I'm sure from time-to-time I've typed "my FA(s)" on a talk page but, of course, none of us owns anything around here. The single greatest frustration facing heavy contributors on Wikipedia is the fact that any page they've built up can be torn down. I take some solace in knowing that, before the great server crash occurs, thousands of people will have read material that I have contributed here, most especially from the pages below. I don't have much time for the grand, often quasi-religious, rhetoric that surrounds Wikipedia. The sum total of human knowledge is a vanishing point (and an internally redundant phrase). My motivations for editing are more pedestrian: it beats yahoo games in holding my interest; I learn as I go; people do read it.

The FA process is useful in all of this for the simple reason that it creates a discrete target. When you log in here, the editing possibilities are enormously diffuse—so much so that you might actually get little done. The FA process says: "Here, do this. Ten thousand people may read it on the main page one day."

But the FA process is far from perfect. Some criticisms are more equal than others and I've divided my comments accordingly.

I agree that...

FA doesn't scale well. This has been extensively described at Wikipedia:One featured article per quarter and Wikipedia:100,000 feature-quality articles. At current rates, a couple of centuries will be needed before the FAs approach the low six digits. How about 100,000 FAs on core topics? The extinction of the human race will likely intervene beforehand.

FAC and FAR have an insufficient number of reviewers relative to nominations. A perennial problem; perhaps the single greatest facing the process, so I'll spend the most time on it. It's been phrased any number of ways: there's not enough content reviewers relative to style reviewers; there's not enough reviewers willing to actually make fixes; too many reviewers are inexperienced or ill-informed regarding the FA criteria. The uncharitable reason that's been offered for this is that the review pages are so mean-spirited no one wants to review. I disagree (more on that later). I'd suggest a simpler reason: reviewing is thankless. There's no star for it; no list equivalent to WP:WBFAN. Nominating, basically, is just more fun.

A related category of editor that there's too few of is those who make "saves" on FAR. There are too few because, again, there are no invisible carrots: The TFA is usually long gone and the star "belongs" to someone else. I've helped oversee that page for two years and I'll offer this: the people who have gotten their teeth into three and four year-old FAs and saved them are the people I have gained the greatest respect for on-site. To a person, they are exceptional Wikipedians (you all know who you are).

Along with the thanklessness, I'll offer one other reason for the lack of reviewers: the split between the GA and FA processes. This is a touchy subject, given tribalism that's developed on the subject. To be fair: Je m'accuse. I'll save further discussion for later.

FA can create inter-article lopsidedness. To explain this, consider the three cats listed below. Suppose the work involved in getting them to FA amounted to 300%. If that work had been divided across the 40-odd feline species, each would have improved by 8%. If it had been divided across the 12-odd that are Lynx-sized or larger, it would have been a 25% improvement to each. Aren't the latter two scenarios preferable for Wikipedia's purposes? Probably. (You can argue oppositely, however: that it's better, ultimately, to have an excellent article on the Bobcat and a poor article on the Eurasian Lynx rather than (merely) decent articles on both.) In any case, the FA process helps ensure single article, rather than category-wide, focus.

FA contributes to badgism. It certainly does. I've already mentioned WBFAN; a good argument can be mounted that lists of this sort should be deprecated. (The list of Wikipedians by number of edits is in many ways the worst of all.) And then there's the ubiquitous use of the star (and GA plus symbol) on User and User talk pages. Mais je m'accuse encore: in part, I'm typing up this page to list "my FAs," after all. Thus I won't say this is the most serious problem threatening the process. We're allowed to be proud of what we do around here—just keep it in perspective.

Did you know?

That one of the most important open questions in the field of planetary habitability, is whether red dwarf systems can support life?
That the Fermi paradox was reportedly proposed over lunch?
That the Jaguar has developed an exceptionally powerful bite, even relative to the other big cats, allowing it to pierce the shells of armoured reptiles?
That Barnard's Star is approaching the Sun so rapidly it will be the nearest star around AD 11,700?
That Quipu, a textile-based recording form, has been associated with the 5,000 year old Norte Chico civilization suggesting a "proto-writing" system in the ancient Americas?
That the Cougar has the greatest range of any wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere?
That the Bobcat is capable of taking prey eight times its weight?
That if you can stand liquid methane and temperatures of −179 °C you might swim on the surface of Titan?
That Sun-like Tau Ceti was one of the first two stars to be targetted by SETI?