Wikipedia talk:Tomorrow's featured article/Proposal for improving TFA selection guidelines

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Interesting idea. At this point, I don't think that there are enough FAs to warrant putting more specific topics on the front page—we'd have to repeat FAs every few months, as opposed to having totally new content every day on the front page. The problem is that people like to focus on specific topics because they seem more manageable. Think Art competitions at the Summer Olympics, Pet skunk, Suburbs of Johannesburg, etc. I wrote welding, but I've also written gas metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding, and shielded metal arc welding. However, as we continue to grow and hopefully start pumping out 50-100 FA's per month, your idea will become more viable and more acceptable to the community. At some point, hopefully, we'll have such a huge backlog of FAs in the TFA queue that we'll have to take other measures to get more FAs onto the front page. Maybe we'll be able to implement your idea for TFA, and then the more specific FAs might be put in a new section not unlike Did you know? that would introduce 2 or 3 more specific FAs. By that time (probably a few years away), the new articles on Wikipedia would be virtually all either current events or extremely obscure, and using FAs instead could work. --Spangineer (háblame) 18:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I see your point, which is I imagine may be what many consider the "practical" view. :) The problem with an expediency argument is that it can have lots of unforeseen and/or undesirable consequences, simply because the pressing goal is the focus, as opposed to the policy itself.

In trying to find a way to separate the commercial from the educational. I tried to come up with guidelines that accomplish that in a practical way. Saying "no commercial topics" could be difficult to determine when it came to cases. Crafting the proposal in terms of identifying quality by reference to core topics seems a broader and more effective angle.

In your example, there is certainly room for all that welding :), all of which would come before, say, ESAB or Lincoln Electric... So the intent is not to limit things to only the individual elements in the periodic table of elements, it is to favor the topics underlying others, like, all the types of welding, before specific welding companies, proprietary welding gear, and so forth... In that framework, great flexibility seems possible... --Tsavage 01:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Alternative to #3: Topical tie-ins are good

This alternativee to #3 as in the proposal was posted. I moved it here, as the proposal is...just that. Changing it to the opposite doesn't seem to be a profitable way of developing it. That said, perhaps there is value to some topicality (and, as guidelines, the flexibility is there for exceptions within the spirit of the proposal). However, it is a very tricky issue, because it muddies the water and sets up all sorts of potential for perceived and real abuse of the TFA spot.

Here is the amended version that I removed from the proposal itself:

3. TFAs should be scheduled in order to create a topical (e.g. current event) tie-in. Such tie-ins raise interest in Wikipedia and help wikipedia remain at the top of the results when users search for topical subjects. Fore example, users are more likely to search for "KaDee Strickland" on KaDee's birthday, and presentation on the front page of Wikipedia assists those using search engines to find information about KaDee. However, in no case should an article that would not normally be eligible for TFA be included because it is topical.

The "promotional value for WP" reasoning on the surface seems plausible, but must be looked at more closely. Questions this raises:

• Do TFAs contribute significantly to the page rankings for the articles they represent?

• Are people looking for a topic likely to come to the WP home page to do so?

• Is it acceptable to provide promotional support to people, products, events, holidays (and if so, to some and not to others)? For example, there is no doubt that Apple Computers would find a positive promotional value in having Apple Macintosh front-paged any time, and more so on the Mac's birthday. (An analogous question: Would a company like to have its product on the front page of many newspapers simultaneously around the world? Better yet, on a product-significant day?) And, what of Apple's competitors -- even inadvertently, why should an NPOV encyclopedia be providing publicity for some computer brands, actors, proprietary games, and so forth, and not others? Or, for particular religions (holidays), associations, etc? No topicality follows from the first two guidelines. Commercial products would (most?) often be associated with the topical tie-ins with the broadest appeal, which is largely what makes topicality problematic.

Clearly, TFA is a promotional device, but it should be clear what is being promoted ("critical thinking"?, "unbiased information"?, "depth of content"?, "trivia"?, "commercial products"?, and so forth), and by what method (presenting a good impression to visitors arriving at the home page?; bolstering search engine rankings?; providing internal motivation for article improvement?; etc). --Tsavage 00:57, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no reason that topical events shouldn't be included as Main Page Featured Article. That is the current practice, and I see no reason that it should change Trödel•talk 16:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

What is TFA for?

It seems to me that before one can talk about rules for TFA - you need to have a goal in mind. What is TFA for? I can think of a few things:

1. Is it to help the general public find useful information? If so - then putting up an Xmas related article on Dec25th is a very good idea - you should pick the article that has the highest probability of being useful on that specific day. In the days immediately before and after some major event - the public is more likely to be interested in reading about that event than any other article picked at random from Wikipedia.
2. Is it about promoting Wikipedia? If so, then it should be the very best and most generally useful article available on that day.
3. Is it about rewarding the authors of good articles and thereby encouraging more good articles to be written? If so, then picking the highest quality article would be the best strategy - irrespective of whether it's "tissue" or "Kleenex".
4. Is it about making some political point about the nature of Wikipedia? Perhaps countering some percieved criticism? Well, I sincerely hope not - but if it were then we'd need to keep some kind of running score on where the public's perception of us is - and where we'd like it to be - and pick the article that's furthest from the public's perception in the direction where we actually are. Tricky...and probably stupid...we really don't know where the public's perception is - only where a few pundits say it is.
5. Is it to promote education by having people read an article they normally wouldn't think to look at? If so - then perhaps picking more obscure historical/geographical/scientific topics is a good idea because people are more likely to learn something they don't already know. Maybe the big topic 'foundation' articles are a better way to go...I'm not sure - but if this is your goal then the other things I've listed are inappropriate.
6. Is it just to make the home page look fresh and interesting? If so then having a good photograph and a catchy and interesting first paragraph is paramount. This isn't such a terrible thing - we want people to come visit Wikipedia often - and if there is always something new and interesting there - they'll come more often.

I don't think we have widespread agreement on these principles - just look at acrimony of the April 1st arguments and the Bulbasaur FAC debate - those cycle around two schools of thought as to the goals of FA's and TFA's.

Until there is a solid understanding of the goals for TFA's, setting out rules for achieving those goals is just ridiculous. SteveBaker 16:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)