The featured article process was rocked this week by several lengthy and contentious discussions. Most were centered on a single issue: whether the positions of featured article (FA) director and delegate should be elected, or if the delegates should continue to be appointed by current FA director Raul654. In the midst of this, a shock came with the unrelated resignation of longtime FA delegate SandyGeorgia.
The discussions spawned from a lengthy post by SandyGeorgia, where she laid out points which she felt needed discussion based on feedback from the previous year. The section quickly became a heated debate between supporters and opposers of the FAC delegate selection system.
This should be understood with a consideration of the history behind the current FA setup. The term "featured articles" replaced "brilliant prose" in January 2004, and around this time Raul654 suggested that these articles should appear on the main page, which looked like this before. In late February 2004, this was done, and the now-standard main page setup of a featured article, in the news, did you know, and on this day were seen for the first time, though featured pictures were not yet included.
With the new system of selecting "featured" articles over "brilliant prose", Raul became the de facto FA director in mid-2004 and was officially recognized in August. Over the next several years, he was in charge of promoting or not promoting FA candidates ( FACs) and scheduling articles for the main page (through Today's Featured Article). As traffic increased on the pages, he delegated some of the work at FAC to SandyGeorgia in November 2007, though there were some concerns over the process. Over time, Raul stepped further away from FA areas, adding new delegates in March 2009, November 2010, and current delegate Ucucha in August 2011, along with a TFA delegate in June 2011.
According to Raul, vacancies are filled in a consultative process between the FA director and the featured process (FAC, FAR, TFA) needing a delegate. Raul asks the current delegates for a short list of candidates, from which he picks an editor and gauges their interest. If they decline, he repeats the process with another editor on the list. When one accepts, Raul puts his choice on the process' talk page and assesses community reaction to his choice. So far, none of his choices have received sufficient opposition to warrant withdrawing their name. Delegate removals operate with a similar process, though the only reason serious enough to warrant removal in the last four years has been a lack of activity on-wiki.
Opposers of this system tend to believe that having one editor in such a position is at a disconnect with other processes that hold annual elections for leadership positions. Supporters counter that such a system insulates delegates from having to worry about an upcoming election when closing FACs.
A straw poll and RfC on the election issue were opened, but both were strongly opposed by editors with objections and concerns over the process, with a planned RfC drafted by editor Mike Christie (who managed the 2010 FAC RFC) coming in a few days. The first topic to be tackled in this RfC was left open to a straw poll, and it appears that leadership at FAC – whether it should be left to the current system or a voting procedure – will be examined first.
While these discussions were taking place, SandyGeorgia – a featured article delegate since 2007 and a reviewer for some time before that – tendered her resignation on 8 January, though she will continue to serve for thirty days or until another delegate is appointed to ease the transition. Before becoming a delegate, Sandy was a frequent editor of medical articles; with increasing problems of ensuring accuracy within this topic, along with POV issues in her other topic of choice, Venezuela-related articles, she believed it was time to resign to devote her editing to improving these areas.
Eight featured articles were promoted this week.
Four featured lists were promoted this week:
Three featured pictures were promoted this week.
The featured article process was rocked this week by several lengthy and contentious discussions. Most were centered on a single issue: whether the positions of featured article (FA) director and delegate should be elected, or if the delegates should continue to be appointed by current FA director Raul654. In the midst of this, a shock came with the unrelated resignation of longtime FA delegate SandyGeorgia.
The discussions spawned from a lengthy post by SandyGeorgia, where she laid out points which she felt needed discussion based on feedback from the previous year. The section quickly became a heated debate between supporters and opposers of the FAC delegate selection system.
This should be understood with a consideration of the history behind the current FA setup. The term "featured articles" replaced "brilliant prose" in January 2004, and around this time Raul654 suggested that these articles should appear on the main page, which looked like this before. In late February 2004, this was done, and the now-standard main page setup of a featured article, in the news, did you know, and on this day were seen for the first time, though featured pictures were not yet included.
With the new system of selecting "featured" articles over "brilliant prose", Raul became the de facto FA director in mid-2004 and was officially recognized in August. Over the next several years, he was in charge of promoting or not promoting FA candidates ( FACs) and scheduling articles for the main page (through Today's Featured Article). As traffic increased on the pages, he delegated some of the work at FAC to SandyGeorgia in November 2007, though there were some concerns over the process. Over time, Raul stepped further away from FA areas, adding new delegates in March 2009, November 2010, and current delegate Ucucha in August 2011, along with a TFA delegate in June 2011.
According to Raul, vacancies are filled in a consultative process between the FA director and the featured process (FAC, FAR, TFA) needing a delegate. Raul asks the current delegates for a short list of candidates, from which he picks an editor and gauges their interest. If they decline, he repeats the process with another editor on the list. When one accepts, Raul puts his choice on the process' talk page and assesses community reaction to his choice. So far, none of his choices have received sufficient opposition to warrant withdrawing their name. Delegate removals operate with a similar process, though the only reason serious enough to warrant removal in the last four years has been a lack of activity on-wiki.
Opposers of this system tend to believe that having one editor in such a position is at a disconnect with other processes that hold annual elections for leadership positions. Supporters counter that such a system insulates delegates from having to worry about an upcoming election when closing FACs.
A straw poll and RfC on the election issue were opened, but both were strongly opposed by editors with objections and concerns over the process, with a planned RfC drafted by editor Mike Christie (who managed the 2010 FAC RFC) coming in a few days. The first topic to be tackled in this RfC was left open to a straw poll, and it appears that leadership at FAC – whether it should be left to the current system or a voting procedure – will be examined first.
While these discussions were taking place, SandyGeorgia – a featured article delegate since 2007 and a reviewer for some time before that – tendered her resignation on 8 January, though she will continue to serve for thirty days or until another delegate is appointed to ease the transition. Before becoming a delegate, Sandy was a frequent editor of medical articles; with increasing problems of ensuring accuracy within this topic, along with POV issues in her other topic of choice, Venezuela-related articles, she believed it was time to resign to devote her editing to improving these areas.
Eight featured articles were promoted this week.
Four featured lists were promoted this week:
Three featured pictures were promoted this week.
Discuss this story
Fixin' needed
1. The discussions at FAC did not start over, and are not mostly about directorship, succession, and leadership-- they started with the TCO and Ettrig position that only articles with high page views should be eligible to be Featured articles, and from there, the "Wehwalt for FA director" campaign emerged. [1] [2] Unrelated issues are being conflated here.
2. Karanacs resigned in early December, but Raul held off accepting her resignation, possibly hoping that her situation might change, knowing that Ucucha and I could handle the workload. More conflating of unrelated events-- Karanacs resigned well before any of this, although TCO may have been a factor-- see the statement on her talk page. [3] Further, these are not Raul's words: "Raul received an email from her in December with an offer to resignation due to inactivity, but held it in the hope she would be able to return." He made a statement on FAC talk; to write this accurately, use it please. [4]
3. My resignation is also being conflated incorrectly with other issues (I made a statement, pls read it). I had intended to resign also in January, then had to stay on because of Karanacs' resignation, and then realized it would be unfair to the FA community for me to let the RFC run to endorse Raul's leadership, only to announce afterwards that I was resigning. So, I felt it responsible to resign now, but offered to stay on for 30 days so there won't be a workload crunch.
Now, those are diffable facts, yet the current version of this piece is leaving the impression that two delegates resigned because of a leadership crisis. Not the case, and the issues that are most affecting the FAC talk page are not about succession, but equally about the (proposed) notion that only high page view articles should be FAs and changes are needed to that effect. Two RFCs (one SNOW) this week have failed to endorse leadership concerns with Raul (not mentioned here?)-- a third is in planning stages. Please, let's get the facts right so that we don't create a biased and faulty impression of what's happening at FAC, which could then bias the pending RFC. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:40, 10 January 2012 (UTC) reply
Oh ffs, the US is NOT the default
Yet again, Wikipedia shows its US bias. If the FAC people are doing it, what hope is there for the project as a whole? Of the topics above, all those that are related to a particular area or region have that country/region named in the blurbs on this page, apart from the American ones. No need to say that Boeing is a US company, Bob Dylan is American or the Grammys are American awards, is there? Because we all know that, right? And if we don't we of course will assume it because the US is the default, won't we? The US is not the default setting in Wikipedia. If Wikipedia wants to be taken seriosuly as an international project, it HAS to start adding US nationality or country information to its articles on US subjects.
Nationality given:
Not given because, hey, it's not necessary because it's American
That's 100% we have to give nationalities for non-US topics, and we 100% don't have to for US ones. This isn't the first time I've raised this problem on this page: apparently no-one thinks it's important enough to act on. Of course Americans won't see anything wrong with the status quo: the rest of the Anglophone world does though. 86.134.117.17 ( talk) 08:41, 11 January 2012 (UTC) reply