Are Feature articles worth their salt?, Feature article quality evaluation shows they're a crock Options

[chrisoff]

This has been posted by TCO on the FA talk page and seriously questions the value of FA to Wikipedia on Improving Wikipedia’s important articles!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...nt_articles.pdf

Are articles with high reader page views more important than "niche" articles by FAC regulars that get few views per month?

Is FAC a "walled garden" concentrating on "star collectors" (niche article polishers) that discourages NEW BLOOD and NEW IDEAS?

This post has been edited by chrisoff:

[chrisoff]

But if the FA is on a topic that hardly anyone reads? That is most of the FAs!


"Ian Rose, star collector, has 6 FAs at an average page view of 254 (the lowest average of all 155 FAers, including all the dabblers)."

Malleus brings up the Donner Party as a heavy hitter. But it was an article collaboration.

Collaborated Featured Articles are more relevant than solo-nominated ones. (Monthly page views used to measure relevance.)

Of the 151 FA's analyzed, "46 users had a single collaboration and 90 users had solo FAs only".

Read the study!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...nt_articles.pdf

This post has been edited by chrisoff:

[Malleus]

Malleus brings up the Donner Party as a heavy hitter. But it was an article collaboration.

And in what way does that disqualify it from consideration? I have many FA/GAs that get more than the arbitrary 3000 page views per month. Not sure how many of them I've written this year though. Quite likely you'll tell me though.

This post has been edited by Malleus:

[chrisoff]

Malleus brings up the Donner Party as a heavy hitter. But it was an article collaboration.

And in what way does that disqualify it from consideration? I have many FA/GAs that get more than the arbitrary 3000 page views per month. Not sure how many of them I've written this year though. Quite likely you'll tell me though.

Read the study!

You dismiss the Vital articles like House, but you are answered by Johnbod:

"Well over 100,000 per month apparently, probably mostly with homework, as for many of these articles; but they still deserve a better article than they currently get. Or maybe they want to know why the plumbing is bust, in which case, tough. What really pisses me off is truly dire stubs like [[English Renaissance]], where (until today) some 17,000 readers a month were told that "William Shakespeare, composed theatrical representations of the English take on life, death, and history", which had of course remained unchanged since 2005 (when the article overall was far better than this morning, I now see). That's over a million views. I do think that editors who are able to improve the worst of these without much effort have a responsibility to the project to spend some of their time doing so. At all levels we put far too much effort into new articles, as opposed to the long-untouched rubbish on significant topics we already have.

Is Wikipedia for the world? Or just for you and Ottava?

As the study asks:

Why is production of new FAs dropping?
•Bottlenecks of structure (page construction, time requirements)?
•Reviewer limits (only a few trusted reviewers and no recruitment or training of top replacements)?
•Unpleasant FAC atmosphere? Edit wars dissuading high investment in articles? Desired exclusivity? “Burnout”? Others?

[Ottava]

Read the study!

You dismiss the Vital articles like House...

Most of the "Vital" articles are crap topics with little solid academic publications. Things like "House" are so common, wide spread, etc, that making an encyclopedia article based on third party sources is practically impossible. It is like trying to determine the color of the sun by staring at it.

An article like Samuel Johnson (chosen because it is a shared FA of Malleus and myself and you are referring to us both) is a truly "vital" article in the academic sense - it is a major figure that is historic, has a lot of academic sources, and is someone that an encyclopedia should be used to contain information on.

The study merely assumed that those determining the "vital" status actually knew what they were doing, and they ignored other determiners of importance (other rankings or things like "does the traditional Britannica have an article on it?").



One of the problems is that people assume that editors are able to work on any topic and are willing to change topics. Instead, most FAC contributors specialize in a few topics of interest and don't care about anything else. This is good and bad, but it wont ever change. It is like complaining that there are too many people who want to study Math instead of study Biology. You can't really force them to go somewhere that they aren't interested in going.

There was either a short story or an actual news report of a socialistic type society that randomly assigned jobs instead of providing people what jobs they are good at/have backgrounds in. The end result is that it doesn't work. Why? Because it would be impossible for it to work. That isn't human nature.

This post has been edited by Ottava:

[chrisoff]

Read the study!

You dismiss the Vital articles like House...

Most of the "Vital" articles are crap topics with little solid academic publications. Things like "House" are so common, wide spread, etc, that making an encyclopedia article based on third party sources is practically impossible. It is like trying to determine the color of the sun by staring at it.

An article like Samuel Johnson (chosen because it is a shared FA of Malleus and myself and you are referring to us both) is a truly "vital" article in the academic sense - it is a major figure that is historic, has a lot of academic sources, and is someone that an encyclopedia should be used to contain information on.

The study merely assumed that those determining the "vital" status actually knew what they were doing, and they ignored other determiners of importance (other rankings or things like "does the traditional Britannica have an article on it?").

You speak volumes! Clearly your little world is not the one that Wikipedia.org is aiming for exclusively. Jimbo is reaching toward India! And the rest of the world.

Can you believe that there is soon to be a time when no one will care about Samuel Johnson?

House (as in structure) is more important globally.

[Ottava]

You speak volumes! Clearly your little world is not the one that Wikipedia.org is aiming for exclusively. Jimbo is reaching toward India! And the rest of the world.

Can you believe that there is soon to be a time when no one will care about Samuel Johnson?

House (as in structure) is more important globally.

1. "House" is too generic of a term. What those in India consider a house is not the same as those in the US.

2. Pages like "House" are better served in wikitionary and not with an encyclopedia article.

3. India, like China and Japan, has a large amount of interest in British literature. You'd be amazed by the thousands of Asian PhDs in English Literature. Their publication standards tend to be low, and much of it tends towards comparative analysis, but it isn't the lack of interest as you claim.

Furthermore, a page on "house" will not help high school and college kids get ahead. Pages that are truly encyclopedic and truly vital would.

[thekohser]

Furthermore, a page on "house" will not help high school and college kids get ahead. Pages that are truly encyclopedic and truly vital would.

Jeffrey, have you ever owned a house that wasn't handed down to you by your parents? Just askin'.

[Ottava]

Furthermore, a page on "house" will not help high school and college kids get ahead. Pages that are truly encyclopedic and truly vital would.

Jeffrey, have you ever owned a house that wasn't handed down to you by your parents? Just askin'.

Why would that matter to a student? It isn't a page on home ownership, and even if it was it couldn't be a guide. And why would homes in India be the same as homes here? What is the point of that question?

[chrisoff]

Why would that matter to a student? It isn't a page on home ownership, and even if it was it couldn't be a guide. And why would homes in India be the same as homes here? What is the point of that question?

Do you think Wikipedia is just for students? Just for people like you?

You probably agree with this "so-called" FA editor (who is probably pissed that she wasn't mentioned in TCO's report at all), whose response to the points made in the report - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...nt_articles.pdf was this:

"I think one of the most important retorts to this is that people already know about most vital topics. I know what history is." http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=462151898

At least it got the FAC talk page going, which has been fairly dead lately.

And the FAC director managed to drive Jimmy Butler's biology class from Wikipedia. He announced that he is pulling out at the end of the year, a professor whose class has been praised by others on wiki.

"We will be pulling out of Wikipedia in January. I will remain off the discussion pages and focus all my energies on the student's efforts. For many reasons (not specific to this current concern), this is the projects last year. So please accept my apology and I will soon drop off the radar."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=462220611

But of course, the FA director must have the LAST WORD, worrying that her skiing vacation next week will be disrupted by the poor teacher's student edits and will:

expect me to be available to help when I'm skiing next week

(The FA director is a little self absorbed!)


http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=462229131

This post has been edited by chrisoff:

[Ottava]

Do you think Wikipedia is just for students?

I'd rather it be just for students than the current situation where the target audience is apparently sex crazed gay white males (or, at least, gay males turned on by white guys) who want to use the place as a hosting gallery/pick up site.


Thekohser

You appear to assume that no high school students or college "kids" have any intention of entering the home building trade,

.... Um... what?

Why would the page "House" be about the "home building trade"? Why would people in India care about such a thing? Why would that even be "vital" or "encyclopedic"? Do college kids really care about the history of the home building trade and that it would actually help them get involved? Wikipedia isn't a "howto" guide.

. I count among my local "grown up" friends, not one -- but two -- men who went to college and now own their own home construction and remodeling businesses.

You obviously have my personal information, so you would obviously know what business my brother is involved in. And no, he would not find Wikipedia any use in said business. He has actual books and resources, magazines, etc.



Malleus

Don't feed SBJ. Unfortunately, someone got drunk and decided to replace GBG with him. It makes sense since both are unbelievable asses who serve no purpose except to harass people. The problem is, I can no longer ignore him and neither can everyone else. He is a known stalker and yet no one on Wikipedia has a problem with him still being an admin. A Horse lost his ability to edit for doing far, far less than SBJ has done towards myself and others.

This post has been edited by Ottava:

[thekohser]

Why would the page "House" be about the "home building trade"? Why would people in India care about such a thing?

You're actually serious with these inane questions, aren't you?

Wow.

P.S. I have no idea who your brother is.

P.P.S. Happy Thanksgiving.