Wikinews talk:Featured article candidates/Archive 1

Now Elo's presentation

Now Elo's presentation is past (I wonder if he used the page?!), perhaps we should de-list and discuss all the articles currently on FA too. Dan100 (Talk) 22:28, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

World's biggest polluters won't cut back on fossil fuel

Well written, nice pictures. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

New Format

Pos	Article	Current consensus	Article Nominated by	Article Talk Page
1	Iraq: Uneven voter turnout elects women who push sharia law while anti-woman violence rages	2/0/0	07:22, 9 September 2006 by User:Bawolff	Go to Article's Talk Page
2	Iraq ballots to be audited due to voting "anomalies"	2/0/0	23:38, 18 October 2005 by User:Bawolff	Go to Articles' Talk Page
3	Dance party broken up by police in Utah, USA	3/2/4	02:31, 19 March 2006 by User:Bawolff	Go to Article's Talk Page

Colour	Description
	Strong support, article has little or no neutrality or opposition
	Moderate support, article has a few neutral voters and one or two in opposition
	Neutrality or deadlock, equal numbers support and oppose, and/or most people are neutral
	Moderate opposition, article has a few neutral voters and one or two in support
	Strong opposition, article has little or no support

Thunderhead(talk) 03:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

i like this new format to be used as a summary of the featured article page. the discussion on the nominations will remain as they are. i think the talk page column is redundant, perhaps a "(talk)" can be tagged to the end of the article name itself. named background colors are better, since editors may have to change the colors following voting, and it's not obvious to everyone (atleast me) what color #EEB4B4 is.  — Doldrums(talk) 04:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

We could just have a list of colours - for 40% use #AAA/whaterver. or we could specify them in the CSS (better soloution as people can go about changing it. to suit them). However this seems like it should be more suited for WN:FA then WN:FAC. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, this was my first Wikicoding (my own), and I thought it might go here. Move / Edit as you please! Thunderhead(talk) 00:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

potential good articles

I found this list a while back, I think Dan100 made it, You may be intreasted in reading some of them, but most are not FA quality. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

• 2006
  • Major explosions at UK oil depot
• 2005
  • June 16: World Bank president addresses global youth forum on genocide
  • June 12: More political, soccer-related unrest in Iran follows Bahrain victory
  • May 16: Hundreds of people gather in support of Mikhail Khodorkovsky
  • May 9: Grafton, New York Peace Pagoda celebrates birth of Buddha with Flower Festival
  • May 6: Results of 2005 United Kingdom General Election
• April 11: Ethiopia plans to expand country's Internet access
  • April 2: Pope John Paul II dies
  • March 24: Woman finds human finger in bowl of chili at Wendy's restaurant
  • March 16: UK Chancellor of the Exchequer makes 2005 Budget speech
  • January 21: Unrest in Belize
• 2004
  • December 31: Strongest earthquake in 40 years hits Southeast Asia

Featured article prevalence on wikinews

[... cut off from vote. See Wikinews:Featured article candidates/archive/1 for futher context ]

• Support. I had a lot of fun writing this article. I hope that as a featured article, others will have a lot of fun reading it; and, perhaps, be inspired to write one of their own. GreenReaper 02:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a heads up, featured articles don't really get any more attention then normal articles (which is the main reason this procedure doesn't happen very often) Bawolff ☺☻ 03:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Alas. Well, at least I read all the current ones . . .

Still, if what you say is true, perhaps they should? At WikiFur, our best work is something that we're proud of - we keep it around, to show others. Indeed, we make a point of doing so to visitors - because, you know, then they might actually decide to join in and do something similar. :-) Indeed, most of our front page is featured content in some way or another. GreenReaper 03:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but you're an entirely different type of project then we are. Furwiki (to my understanding) in more encyclopedic in nature and specialized. Its not really important for it to be extremely current. However, we have to have things new. No one in general cares about yesterday's news that much. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

This is true - to an extent. It's partly because Wikinews appears to be focusing on "hard" news - while I can see the reasons for this, I think it limits things quite a bit. But our featured content is not just for the benefit of our readers; it's for those who would be contributors but don't know it yet. A really good selection of pieces can inspire people to write their own to join it, even if they've never done anything similar before. I don't think you really "get" Wikipedia until you've seen a featured article, and I think the same is likely to be true of Wikinews. GreenReaper 04:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

That is a refreshing perspective GreenReaper. Magazine-like content is good stuff and is something like what I find this featured article candidate to be. "Hard" news goes at a fast and furious pace, and from that perspective, after 2 or 3 days, I beieve an article is firewood. It makes me somewhat of a bigot, by blabbering here, to say that I would rather see community time spent in what was proudly reported at Wikinews in the media. -Edbrown05 04:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you (GreenReaper), but at the moment, I don't see how we can really promote it further. Although its not exactly time sensitive, we can't just keep it on the main page forever. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking beyond this particular article. :-) How many people were surprised to discover that Wikinews even had a collection of featured articles? How do you get there from the main page? Where are people meant to go when they look for examples of good work to emulate?

Wikinews does really well on showing readers what's "latest" - to an extent that other wikis could do well to learn from - but it seems to fall down on "best." On professional news sites perhaps this doesn't matter all that much, in part because people who write for such sites tend to know what they're doing already, but if people come here and all they see are the average stories then that's probably all they'll be inspired to write, if they do so at all. People do better with lots of good examples laid out in front of them. It's a hassle - I know, because I'm usually the one who ends up doing it at WikiFur - but presenting an archive of the best of your work has multiple benefits that make it well worth the time involved. If nothing else, it's something the Wikinews community can look at and be proud of, and that's no small advantage. GreenReaper 05:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify that - it falls down on a collection of "long term best." This article is possibly the best on Wikinews, but how many new readers will even know it exists? GreenReaper 05:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually a lot (Its our most popular story [1] ) However I do see your point. People should be able to see examples of us at our best. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

How long do candidate discussions sit here before getting archived/promoted?

Deadly Typhoon Cimaron makes landfall in Luzon was nominated by Icelandic Hurricane (talk · contribs) on December 9, 2006, and yet it has not yet been archived or promoted - that seems like quite a long time. We should add a cap/ceiling at the top of WN:FA setting a max amount of time that candidate discussions go on - say no more than six months. The process should not take over 1 year to decide on whether to give an article WN:FA status. Cirt - (talk) 10:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

Please see Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy#Wikinews:Featured_article_candidates_-_should_not_be_nominated_until_they_are_archived. Cirt (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Now closed, and page updated. Cirt (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Minimum votes

I am very uncomfortable to see an article promoted on a mere three or four support votes. There have been times in the past that articles have sat as FACs for months, going nowhere. I would far rather see that happen to try and reach about 10 votes as opposed to something getting promoted on a wave of apathy. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:51, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm the guilty party, and not at all opposed to this idea. The trouble is that nobody ever really considered this before. I looked over the archive and found three had previously been considered enough if it was unanimous. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I know you're the "guilty party", I didn't want to make it a personal issue. I just wanted to highlight something a little concerning to me. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I would say promoting with three unanimous supports and no opposition is okay after a lengthy period of time of say over one month. Cirt (talk) 22:10, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Cirt. 3-4 votes is acceptable, imho, as long as support is unanimous and it's been open for more than a month (to allow people enough time to raise any possible objections). Tempodivalse [talk] 23:35, 22 November 2009 (UTC)