Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Featured topics

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. Some people suggested a rename; this sounds reasonable and should be discussed on its talk page. This MFD should not be taken as an endorsement for the old name, nor for the new name. >Radiant< 10:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured topics

This is... weird. The whole thing is based on the idea that if you group many mediocre articles into a series, the sum might somehow be featured status. That's questionable at best, absurd at worst. I also don't see how someone could evaluate 10+ different articles as a whole, considering what WP:FAC takes for just one article. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 04:25, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. This concept is an incentive to improve all aspects of a topic — not just the parent article. All aspects of the topic do not have to be featured article-level, but they must be referenced and not badly written (at least close to the level of GA, which, in many cases, is great compared to many sub-topics). Moreover, this is a concept just beginning to really take off, so we are still in the process of identifying good series of articles. In the future, the incentive to improve articles that would otherwise be forgotten will be great. I already have motivation and reason to improve articles that would otherwise never have a chance of attaining FA status, but are notable enough to be included on Wikipedia. — Deckiller 04:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • That... totally failed to address my point. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 04:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Nevertheless, the points I make are valid. Evaluating 10 articles is generally why featured topic candidates usually require longer periods of time, and why there are fewer promotions than featured articles. However, let us remember that we are not necessarily nitpicking on the level of featured articles, since many of these articles have already undergone peer review at the FA/GA level. Those that haven't are what receive the greatest audit. — Deckiller 04:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Okay, so you at least addressed my points. But there are a few problems. One, articles which can't get GA status are bad, maybe mediocre, and should not be "featured" anything. Two, the fact that it's just beginning to take off is irrelevant, because my issue isn't that you don't have enough things that should be listed. Three, I don't see why being given a featured star would give a reason to improve the article, if anything, it will encourage the mindset of "okay, we're done with this article". And four, why is it necessary for anything to be possibly featured content? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 04:37, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • First, non-GA articles are not necessarily bad (stability and lack of an abundance of sources might make the article look worse than it is), and I believe that most topic articles will need to show at least close to the level of GA to obtain support (I know this firsthand). Second, there is plenty of material; Final Fantasy is a good example. We have the main Final Fantasy series, the potential for a series for each game and its subarticles (mostly the newer ones, which feature more available out of universe information and sources), a series for history/gameplay, etc. Cricket can have a basic series, a history series, a "types of..." series, and so on. Third, like I said, articles that are not featured or good level will still have room for improvement (featured topics display consistency, and with consistency there is always room for improvement). Four, I've found that featured items provide extra motivation for users. Although Wikipedia's credibility should be motivation enough, people need that extra motivation (it's like at work; people may want to work hard to get paid, but many want to strive to be employee of the month). Why should we destroy this opportunity for consistency? Take a look at the nomination pages; some are being opposed because there are not any or enough GA/FAs in the series. Because Wikipedia is at the point where we need to start improving our articles, not expanding them, we need to take a look at our series and provide this opportunity for review and recognition for consistency. — Deckiller 04:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Okay. One problem definitely still stands, because you haven't answered it. How can a conglomeration of GAs, with some featured articles and non-status articles, be of featured status? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 04:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
        • The idea is that we are looking at Wikipedia's topics and determining which display the highest consistent level of quality. Because we are still in the process of improving all aspects of Wikipedia (we are moving out of the expansion phase, as I believe Jimbo mentioned), we might not have all FAs or even GAs in a topic. The job of FT is to pinpoint those, display them, and show that we are covering all aspects of a topic on an elevated level. We don't want to brush off subtopics in a corner somewhere; I dealt with this issue when working on the New England Patriots article. We want to elevate junkyard articles so that they can stand with their companions as a consistently above average series. In the future, I'm sure many topics will have to be looked at - especially when GA-level becomes a minimum prerequisite. FARC also works in the same way; old FAs that no longer meet to current standards are removed. Several months from now, if this is still around, topics that, say, don't all have GA status will probably end up being reviews. But for now, as I said, we are looking for the best topics we can find, and improving topics to exceed this level. Raising the bar every time is key, and this process provides the device necessary. To sum up this rambling, Featured Topics are featured because they are the best topics - which requires consistency because one really bad article will negate the entire nomination - Wikipedia has to offer. If the best topics Wikipedia has to offer are currently not 100 percent GAs across the board, then we will continue raising the bar to improve everything. — Deckiller 05:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
          • I believe that leads to your key concern; if only a few of our topics are consistently featured status across the board, what's the point? Well, let's remember that FAs originally started at low standards compared to modern standards. We have a significant difference here, so, as I stressed, the key is consistency; we find a suitable level of consistency as our starding point, our initial goal. Over time, we raise that; in the future, the bar will be set that all featured topics must be between GA and FA status, perhaps beyond. But it's all about using this to slowly elevate the quality level as time goes by. — Deckiller 05:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - What's in a name.... Featured Portals aren't featured on the main page. Neither are Featured Lists. It's called "Featured" Topics just so it's consistent with the rest. --PresN 05:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep - This page is part of an existing and ongoing (if little used) project within Wikipedia, and is an essential part of that project. If the Featured Topics project should be abandonned, then this page can be deleted. Until then, it very much should stay. The fact that the nominator does not like the concept behind the project is irrelevant. --EMS | Talk 05:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Moreover, as is evidenced by the fact that we've been really escalating this idea as of late, I think we should at least give it a few months before we give it an audit. — Deckiller 05:31, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Um... I'm pretty sure that in nominating the project page for deletion, I am nominating the project for deletion. That's how I've seen it happen. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Without a consensus to close the project, it is totally inappropriate to request the deletion of this page. I see nothing about this project that cries out for its forcible removal. Instead I see an editor who just plain does not like it, and that is not a good enough reason for me. --EMS | Talk 18:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - Amarkov, the criteria for FT status is not whether every article could be featured on its own, it is whether the topic is a unified subject that is comprehensive and free of obvious gaps. We are not saying that every article in the topic is featured, just that Wikipedia has done a good job of writing about each aspect of the topic. The idea behind featured topics assumes that if a topic takes several articles to thoroughly describe, Wikipedia is a good source regarding it. Of course, each article must be reasonably long, well written, and referenced for the topic to be called comprehensive, which is why the requirements forbid any start-class articles and strongly suggests that most member articles be much higher in quality. This seems like a reasonable amount of checking to do before someone can make a well-informed vote on the topic as an item. --Arctic Gnome 05:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Agreed. This supports the idea of consistency and unity that I mentioned earlier. — Deckiller 05:48, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - You misunderstand the point of this page. If you have some FAs on a broad topic, as well as some mediocre articles on the topic, the grouping gives you two benefits:
  1. People reading the mediocre articles know they can find better content on related articles,
  2. People can see where there are weak points in an otherwise well-written series.

  May be a candidate for speedy keep per WP:SNOW. --Dgies 06:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

  Agreed. It also seems my wordy ramblings were uncalled for due to the support here, and I apologise. — Deckiller 06:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• I don't know about speedy keep. Editors have a right to be worried about new projects, but I think any problems with this one can be fixed by bringing them up on the project's talk page. --Arctic Gnome 06:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• I meant it more as in: Nom misunderstands the reason for the page, and everyone disagrees with him. But you may be right on procedural grounds. --Dgies 06:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment It's an interesting idea, so we might want to keep it for now but re-evaluate the concept with an RfC or something, just to get some more input and attention to it. I didn't even think we had such a "featured" category, although I've probably seen the link and just didn't think about it. -- Ned Scott 06:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • And maybe rename to "Featured article series". -- Ned Scott 06:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Let's let it grow first before we start RfCing it, though; as for the naming, I think "Featured series" might work, although "featured article series" might get a misinterpretation. — Deckiller 06:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I like the name Topic better. Series would work for topics that are actually in a series, like the Star Wars movies or the Kings of the UK. However, it wouldn't work as well for something like the Saffron topic, which includes "history of" and "Trade and usage of". --Arctic Gnome 07:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
        • I was thinking an RfC to actually help advertise it and gain some good ideas on how to help it grow, etc. -- Ned Scott 12:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral for now, but still watching. IMO, as currently listed, there are only two truly featured topics — Saffron and Halloween — because every article in those topics is an FA. GA is a worthless, meaninless designation because it can be conferred by anyone, so considering a "topic" featured because it has a lot of GAs is really misleading to our readers. (I'd consider the other topics featured if they lose the GAs and not-even-GAs.) In order to vote to keep the Project, I'd like to see it truly be about *featured* topics (i.e.; containing featured articles only), such as Saffron - losing the GAs. This should be doable. Otherwise, I'm a Strong Delete, because GA is a truly misleading designation for our readers. Also, unless it is focused *only* on featured articles, the name must be changed, to not use "featured" in any way - it is also misleading for a GA to carry any sort of label using the word "featured". Sandy (Talk) 11:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Really Keep - Very intriguing idea, though maybe the rules like to be tweaked; for example, perhaps we could require that every article in the series has to meet a certain standard (like Good Article). ★MESSEDROCKER★ 12:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - A large part of the divide in opinions here is an evolution of the meaning of 'featured'. Originally, this just meant 'something which we think is generally good and want to advertise'... that is also the meaning being used by most proponents of 'featured topics'. Essentially, they argue that we can make Wikipedia look good by promoting these series of articles which are all solidly written and cover a particular topic in depth. However, over time the standards for 'featured pictures' and especially 'featured articles' have increased considerably to the point that 'featured' for an article now means 'well written, stable, and conforming to all Wikipedia policies and guidelines of referencing and style' (and will continue to grow more strict)... which the 'featured topics' do not measure up to. The 'featured lists' are starting to go towards the 'featured article' type standards, but 'featured portals' are still very much in the realm of 'makes Wikipedia look nice'. If 'featured topics' continue, the standards for such will doubtless grow stricter over time as well. Thus, I think the question should really be whether it has validity as a concept rather than what standards are currently applied. Structurally, I would like to see 'featured topics' becoming merged with 'featured portals' in the future... as a current weakness of the topics is that they are not consistently/nicely organized (some are links to categories, some to list pages, some to an article about the topic, et cetera) and conversely a current weakness of the portals is that not all the articles they link to are of good quality. Essentially both serve to group and ease navigation to a set of articles on a particular subject... just that the standards for 'portals' center on the navigation interface while the standards for 'topics' focus on the underlying articles. I don't think we are yet ready to apply that combined set of requirements (let alone that all elements in the topic/portal be featured articles/lists), but starting to work towards that by identifying 'topics which look good across the board' seems a positive direction to me - and have no doubt that in time it would develop into a requirement that 'all included articles are of featured status'. --CBD 13:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I though that this should be merged with portals when I first found it, but after working on it for a while I’ve come to believe that this is a distinct project, mostly because it covers narrower topics than do portals. Take the Saffron topic for example; it’s only three articles long, so there is no reason to give it its own portal. FT gives us a chance to acknowledge that Wikipedia thoroughly covers all aspects of Saffron. --Arctic Gnome 13:37, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Note to all voters: Even though this is looking like a big keep, there's a pretty big concern over the term "featured". While I like it for consistency, I'm starting up a talk section at FT for discussion over a better name, if one can be found. While I don't share Sandy's major dislike for GAs, I can sympathize with not wanting to call a group of articles rated B or better "featured", even if the goal is to raise the standards to GA or FA later on, once there's more than 5 FTs. --PresN 15:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I suggest it's premature to call it a "big keep" :-) If you'll change the name, I might become a keep; if not, I'm a very strong delete (abuse of "featured" name :-) , and I'm sure there will be others - the MfD is still quite new. Sandy (Talk) 16:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • As I also said on the discussion on FT's talk page, what is being featured is not the articles themselves. I agree that calling a GA "featured" is an abuse of the word. What is being assessed for featured status is whether the topic is being covered gap-free and whether the items within the topic follow a similar page structure and are all linked together. --Arctic Gnome 18:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I also see Sandy as being off-base here. Wikipedia is an ongoing and developing project as a whole. I have seen to standards for FA increase as time has gone on, with articles that were FA early on losing that status not becuase the article got worse but becuase the standards for FA keep getting higher. It is going to be the same with these FT's, and I approve of the overall strategy: Start with attainable standards now, and once there are enough topics listed which would retain their FT status under an increase in the standards, then go ahead and rachet the standards up. High standards now can only be conter-productive: If almost nothing could qualify for the FT designation, this project would be unusable and will be abandonned for that reason. --EMS | Talk 19:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Disagree - the topics you already have listed have enough FAs to populate them, without dipping into articles that aren't even GA. You wouldn't lose any topics by restricting them to FAs. Sandy (Talk) 19:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
          • According to WP:WIAFT, by restricting it to FA articles we would defiantly lose all of them except for Saffron and Halloween film series. The rest would all fail because of requirement 2 (at least three articles) or requirement 4 (no obvious gap). --Arctic Gnome 19:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
            • Circular reasoning - the criterion aren't set in stone, and can be changed (see Thanatosimii's comments, for example.) Sandy (Talk) 22:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
              • Oddly, that is the point that I am making in opposition to you at this time. This project can start with lower standards now and ratchet them up later as is appropriate. It is stupid to set an extremely high bar now, as that will harm this project. Note that I am not opposed to establishing standards for the overview article and/or the member articles, but such standards should not leave you with just two FT-s. Kindly let this project go on for a while, and show that it has the ability to become what you want it to be. --EMS | Talk 04:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
              • I would be very opposed to eliminating the requirement that a topic be gap-free. Sure that would give us a higher percentage of FAs in each topic, but it would completely ruin the point of FT: comprehensiveness by having gap-free groups of articles. --Arctic Gnome 07:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, per Deckiller and Ems57fcva. It's just barely picking up steam, give it more time. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep, but Very Very Strong Modify. To keep the term "featured," there have to be some minimal criteriae for what percentage of articles have to be featured, what percentage of articles have to be good articles, and that all articles have to be above stub status. Saffron and Solar System, for instance, both obviously should be a featured catagory. The work on those pages is very comprehensive. I can't speak to the others, but they don't look too bad. Say, however, I put up the 18th dynasty of Egypt (a future goal of mine) right now with only one FA, two GAs, and two that are barely above stub, out of 14 articles total. That obviously shouldn't get in right now. To keep the term "Featured", there has to be a statuatory requierment about what counts. Thanatosimii 20:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Additional comment: one major criticism of wikipedia is that it's spotty. There are holes and big places without very necesarry articles. This might not just be a nice novelty, but the answer to that problem. If somthing gets featured topic, under a statuatory requierment, that would mean that although there could be improvement, it is "enough," "sufficient." It has satisfied our goals. By means of this, we might just start making a comprehensive encyclopedia here. Thanatosimii 20:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• I think that "comprehensive" should be FT's official buzzword. --Arctic Gnome 22:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd say "consistent" is an equally important word, as well. — Deckiller 22:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Neutral and watching to see what develops. The idea is interesting, but when I first saw this my reaction was that it had to be a bad thing. There is a major difference between an adequate, usable article and an FA; it's doubtful that any individual article in a series will get the same depth of review as a single article does during the FAC process - in fact, not reviewing in such detail is apparently an explicit goal of this project. But serious deficits are often brought to light in this process that wouldn't be noticed in a more cursory reading. If I were going to create something called "featured topics" it would hold a higher standard than FA, and would consist of a series of FA-quality articles on related subjects. I sympathize with the problem here of patchy coverage, but labeling merely adequate articles as 'featured' something-or-other is concerning. (As an aside, a substantial part of the difference between a 'good' - not Good - article and an FA lies in presentation. This is a pain in the ass for those of us who couldn't care less whether the footnote goes before or after the punctuation, and requires an annoying amount of tedious formatting work, but confers a professional appearance on the article that the 'featured topic' articles apparently won't be getting.) Opabinia regalis 06:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • My response to that is the same argument that I’ve made to a couple other editors: what is being called “featured” is not the individual topics; it is the organization of the topic itself. It is the fact that the subject is gap-free by having articles on all relevant items in a topic, and having those articles well linked to each other. The minimum quality standards are there because a start-class article may as well be a gap, but an A-class article is enough to let us say that that part of the topic is gap-free. --Arctic Gnome 07:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Look at it this way... 'Featured portals' do not have a requirement that all, or even some percentage, of the articles they link to or showcase be themselves 'featured'... because that isn't what is being identified as 'featured'. Instead, with portals we designate featured status for attractive design, usability in finding info on the subject, and promoting further development. 'Featured topics', like the portals, link to various articles on a particular subject... but again it isn't the status of the underlying articles which makes the topic 'featured' any moreso than it is with the portals. Topics are 'featured' when we have comprehensive coverage of the subject. Maybe those constituent articles aren't all up to 'featured article' standards of referencing, but they are otherwise solid and cover all aspects of the subject with no major holes. Imagine being able to say that 'Hummingbirds' (for example) was a 'Featured topic' on Wikipedia... meaning that we have solid non-stub articles on all types of hummingbirds in the world. That'd be fairly amazing... and make Wikipedia's coverage on that topic the equivalent of various 'guide to hummingbirds' type books. A very impressive feat and well worth drawing attention to even if some of those articles don't themselves have 'featured' status. --CBD 12:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

    To be honest, I'm not such a big fan of featured portals either... I can appreciate the goal here - especially since FAs are frequently on very specific topics, supported by lamely written articles on the general subject - but the details are fuzzy. 'Every species of hummingbird' sounds like it would be too large a group of articles for the current FT criteria, but the existing 'saffron' group is very small, and not so much a well-covered topic as just a well-written but very long article split up into three pages.

    Just taking a quick look through the solar system series reveals some of the structural problems with FT as it currently exists. All of these articles are 'decent', but Jupiter has two sections tagged as unreferenced, the references in Saturn are misformatted, Uranus is underreferenced, and Earth has a whopping 24 top-level headings and desperately needs reorganizing. I can't really support calling these 'featured' anything, especially with unreferenced tags in them. (I'd have the same problem with a portal putting up a 'selected article' or whathaveyou with unreferenced tags in it.) Opabinia regalis 04:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong remove—I'm sorry, but I can see absolutely no rationale for having featured topics. There's insufficient control over quality, and I see that a significant range of quality is permitted among clustered articles. Why is this structure necessary when linking is such a well-oiled functionality on the project?

It leaves wide open the potential for embarrassment, and I wholeheartedly support the deletion of the page. What is wrong with the FA/FAR system? Tony 00:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Tony, the structure is necessary because a lot of those subpages are just "junkyard" pages, where information is explained poorly and just thrown aside so that the main article can be polished. This provides a greater reason and incentive to ensure everything is of a decent quality. — Deckiller 00:22, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm firmly against making them "Featured" until they're all excellent and pass a rigorous process, such as for FAs. Otherwise, the "Featured" stamp will be diluted. Tony 00:27, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you think that they should be featured articles, or just well written and referenced? I believe that this project helps articles that can't be featured due to focus/length and availability of sources. — Deckiller 00:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep pending a massive overhaul of criteria. Morgan695 03:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - Even though I have voted a strong keep above, I would like to make it clear that I am not unsympathetic to those who want more rigorour criteria. I don't see a new designation like that as being served by having unreachable criteria. Nor do I see its goal (encouraging people to polish the topics they are working on as a whole) as being unreasonable. However, this project has to also show that it can develop, expand, and improve its standards over time. If a year from now I should find that this project is still in the same shape this it is now, I may well vote to remove it. However, this MfD seems to be a result of this project starting to gain traction and getting itself noticed. IMO, that fact is a positive accomplishment and argues for the retention of this project. --EMS | Talk 04:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Could you explain/rephrase that last sentence so that I can follow your logic? The fact that it is being nominated for deletion is a reason to keep it?? — Timwi 18:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Look at the second part of my sentence, about the project starting to gain traction and getting itself noticed. Those are my reasons for wanting this project kept at this time. I agree that the MfD itself it not a reason for keeping this project. What I am saying is the the circumstances that are apparently responsible for the MfD are. --EMS | Talk 02:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I think that featured articles are a valuable addition to our sphere of featured content, for all of the reasons discussed above. However, I agree that more stringent criteria for achieving this status is a good idea. Quaerere 23:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - I hate it when people just VfD something that they don't like, understand, or discuss with the appropriate people at the appropriate place. WP:FT has great potential and is something that will greatly enhance Wikipedia. Well I believe so - if it doesn't, then it's not going to detract from it. violet/riga (t) 10:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep.Let this person have their fun.No harm.Akanksha 18:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete or rename. I don't have a problem with the concept of the project: ensuring that one article related to a topic is not perfected at the expense of the spin-off topics. But I cannot get behind this being "featured" content. Not yet, anyway. Just like users earning admin mops, projects looking to "feature" things should have some time under them, to prove the system works, prove it doesn't have the GA issues, and prove it is maintainable. The alternative does do harm: it waters down featured status; sure, we here on this discussion know that FA <> FT, but not everyone will. Nothing new should get to use the buzzword without wide-scale community support and approval. Serpent's Choice 09:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. We need more featured-quality and good-quality articles before useful things can be done in this area, but that time will come – hopefully soon, but on a wiki, there is always time – Gurch 22:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.