Wikipedia:Standard articles

See Wikipedia:Good articles and Wikipedia:Stable versions for a related proposal.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, has hundreds of thousands of articles. However, not all of these articles are exceptional pieces of work. In fact, only 0.1% of the articles on Wikipedia are these exceptional pieces of work. That can pose a problem though; people can think that the bulk of Wikipedia is composed of garbage and good old fashioned fancruft. However, that's far from the truth! There are plenty of good (not great) articles on Wikipedia, but they don't have any formal recognition. That is why I introduce to you, Standard Articles!

What makes an article a standard article?

A standard article is one that meet certain minimum requirements (standards) for quality that any Wikipedia article should fulfill (see below), but which evolving articles do not always fulfill when they are created. More often than not, such articles are forgotten and their "evolution" does not reach that stage. The procedure of identifying articles as meeting Wikipedia minimum standards encourages editors to take a second look at an article.

Once an article reaches these standards, and there is general consensus that the article reaches these standards, an article is brandished with the Standard Article template, and is mentioned on the Standard Article catalog.

A standard article need not have as high a quality as a good article, or even a featured article. It needn't be good, it just has to be decent.

The standards

The basic standards for a standard article are as follows:

1. Extent: Article is not a stub / covers all relevant areas of the subject gives some basic information about all relevant areas of the subject.
2. Style:
   1. Article is properly organized and wikified.
   2. Article is written in acceptable English.
3. Content:
   1. The facts in the article are justified by the sources
   2. A "see also" section and an "external links" section, or any variation thereof involving the listing of sources and references
   3. Must follow the three content policies: neutral point of view, no original research, and verifiability

Becoming a standard article

If one believes that an article qualifies to be a standard article, they can that bring up on its discussion page. The community can then cast their decisions, such as support or oppose, or they can make a comment. Once consensus has been attained on the talk page after at least seven days, then a user may declare the article as a standard article.

The duty of the user who is bold enough to close the conversation at this point is to "close" the discussion, and brandish the talk page with the template of standard articles. Afterwards, the director adds the articles to the Standard Article catalog (which may be this page, a seperate page, or several pages, depending on the length of the catalog). An article has been made into a standard article, ready for Wikipedia to brag about. :)

Sometimes, articles will go directly from new article to featured article. It should be noted that featured articles are automatically standard articles, and that a standard article template is not needed. A mentioning on the Standard Article catalog, however, is required.

Losing "standard article" status

In the event that an article no longer follows the standards, and merely fixing the problem is harder than it sounds, a user may bring that up on the talk page of the article. Consensus will then decide the fate of the article's status. If the people support removing status, a user removes the template and the mentioning of the article on the catalog. It's as simple as that.

Once a featured article is no longer a featured article, a discussion must be held on the talk page to decide whether the article can still remain as a standard article or not.

Final statements

There needs to be a middle point between the generic everyday article and the extraordinary featured article, so that one may not be intimidated by the fact only 0.1% of the articles are featured. The goal is to be able to have many standard articles, meanwhile reserving featured article status for the truly excellent articles. Be bold in editing this proposal, and remember, when there's a dispute on a certain section, bring it up on the talk page.

Sign up

You can sign up here if you support a quality evaluation scheme for "middle ground" (between FA and stub) Wikipedia articles along the lines that are explained here and if you are ready to contribute to the definition of this quality standard.

1. --Robin.rueth 22:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
2. —MESSEDROCKER (talk) 15:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)