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:

[Ottava]

The articles I worked on were all highly viewed and traditional when it came to academia.

However, most of the articles at FAC were obscure animals, obscure roads, obscure bands, obscure military battles, etc.

[Eppur si muove]

The articles I worked on were all highly viewed and traditional when it came to academia.

However, most of the articles at FAC were obscure animals, obscure roads, obscure bands, obscure military battles, etc.

You forgot about obscure weather events.

Personally I think that Wikipedia is most helpful with producing medium-obscure content where there is some academic value. There are plenty of places you can find out about Michael Jackson on the web. There are relatively few where you can find out about Mary Wollstonecraft. I would regard the latter as much more valuable than the former, never mind the hits.

[chrisoff]

The articles I worked on were all highly viewed and traditional when it came to academia.

However, most of the articles at FAC were obscure animals, obscure roads, obscure bands, obscure military battles, etc.

The review divides FA editors into categories.

Dabblers: Typically a single FA on a low view topic . Example: Harrias writing “Herbie Hewitt”, a 19th century cricket player.

Star collectors: High production of FA stars by emphasizing low-relevance content.like Malleus, Ealdgyth, Casliber, Ucucha, Brianboulton etc. that work on obscure articles with few page views per month and not on important articles.

Champions: Typically a single FA on an important topic. An example is user Jakob.scholbach writing “Logarithm”.

Battleships: Multiple high impact FAs. An example is user Hawkeye writing “Manhattan Project” and “Leslie Groves”. (These editors can also be Star collectors.)

"Champions deliver more value than star collectors, per capita and overall: High relevance/low production beats low relevance/high production."

"Star collecting delivers little benefit as a segment.
•Even though there are almost twice as many star collectors as champions, the champion group delivers eight times the value.
•Star collectors and dabblers together deliver only 7% of overall FA viewer impact."

"Ucucha had 14 times the stars as Garrando in 2011 JAN-SEP. But since Garrando’s single article has 180 times the popularity of Ucucha’s average article, Garrando had 13 times the total reader impact. Champion beats star collector."

This post has been edited by chrisoff:

[Rhindle]

The thing is how long can an FA keep its status without eroding? Subtle vandals can just water down that featured article and it can ultimately end up total crap because "anyone can edit." Sure, there are those who protect articles but how many years can you keep that up? If you can just say once an article reaches FA status it should be locked up and just be updated when something new comes up. However, the culture over there will never allow it.

This post has been edited by Rhindle:

[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:

[Ottava]

The thing is how long can an FA keep it's status without eroding? Subtle vandals can just water down that featured article and it can ultimately end up total crap because "anyone can edit." Sure, there are those who protect articles but how many years can you keep that up? If you can just say once an article reaches FA status it should be locked up and just be updated when something new comes up. However, the culture over there will never allow it.

Good point. Amandajm came to To Autumn and pretty much destroyed it by introducing plagiarism, altering text to say the opposite of the sources, etc. Most people refused to care even when there was lots of proof to that effect. Ceoil even stuck up for her and tried to defend her actions even though all evidence was that the user had a long history of plagiarizing. Much of the plagiarism and other problems is still in the page, unfortunately.



Chrisoff - going off of views, here are mine (30 day period per the stat links):

* Samuel Johnson 41,600
* Ode on a Grecian Urn - 15,404
* To Autumn - 9,848
* The Lucy poems - 4,889
* The Drapier's Letters - 1,175
* Ode on Indolence - 1,049
* The Author's Farce - 636
* Early life of Samuel Johnson - 535
* Christopher Smart's asylum confinement - 507
* Nicolo Giraud - 469
* The Covent-Garden Journal - 369



This post has been edited by Ottava:

[chrisoff]

Chrisoff - going off of views, here are mine (30 day period per the stat links):

Ottava, this study concentrates on recent FA's, from January to September 2011. The study is on the relevance of FAC in general. DON'T just think of yourself!

Study conclusion: (considering the heavy lifting and resources FAC consumes)

As Wikipedia transitions from quantity to quality, GA is carrying the load. FA is not pulling its weight.

[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:

[timbo]

Feature Articles are a crock, plain and simple -- a diversion of scarce editorial resources from actual productive work to pious wankery and resumé padding. The whole A-class/Good Article/Feature Article scheme needs to be tossed out the window, to be replaced by an any-user-awardable A-class designation.

Criteria for A-class should include (a) substantial length; (b) coherent prose; © complete coverage of the topic; (d) multiple illustrations; and (e) full and accurate footnoting.

The entire GA/FA superior dance that one sees is a manifestation of a bureaucratic mentality.


t

[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?

[Eppur si muove]

Chrisoff - going off of views, here are mine (30 day period per the stat links):

* Samuel Johnson 41,600
* Ode on a Grecian Urn - 15,404
* To Autumn - 9,848
* The Lucy poems - 4,889
* The Drapier's Letters - 1,175
* Ode on Indolence - 1,049
* The Author's Farce - 636
* Early life of Samuel Johnson - 535
* Christopher Smart's asylum confinement - 507
* Nicolo Giraud - 469
* The Covent-Garden Journal - 369

All good solid subjects. My last solo GA had 152 but it's useful when the thing is going to be performed somewhere.

The official Wikimedia head office line on value is influenced by their wanting to take over the world. Mine is that organising knowledge that is not immediately available on the web is more useful.

This post has been edited by Eppur si muove:

[timbo]

I've just taken a look at that pdf at the top of this thread.

That is one of the most nauseating pieces of shit that I've ever seen.


t


Here's a gem...

"Even though Wikipedia is 10 years old, the 5th most viewed site on the Internet, and contains 3 million+ articles, 85% of its Vital Articles are still...unsatisfactory."

And who makes a "vital" article a "vital" article? Bureaucrats.

Then, jump from that into the automatic assumption that every article that hasn't been put through the bureaucratic gauntlet is...................... "unsatisfactory."

Hey, fuck you, asshole!!!

I've submitted none of my articles to the A/GA/FA process and I never will. When I'm done, it's a B -- and it's perfectly......................... satisfactory.

This post has been edited by timbo:

[Vigilant]

The thing is how long can an FA keep it's status without eroding? Subtle vandals can just water down that featured article and it can ultimately end up total crap because "anyone can edit." Sure, there are those who protect articles but how many years can you keep that up? If you can just say once an article reaches FA status it should be locked up and just be updated when something new comes up. However, the culture over there will never allow it.

Good point. Amandajm came to To Autumn and pretty much destroyed it by introducing plagiarism, altering text to say the opposite of the sources, etc. Most people refused to care even when there was lots of proof to that effect. Ceoil even stuck up for her and tried to defend her actions even though all evidence was that the user had a long history of plagiarizing. Much of the plagiarism and other problems is still in the page, unfortunately.



Chrisoff - going off of views, here are mine (30 day period per the stat links):

* Samuel Johnson 41,600
* Ode on a Grecian Urn - 15,404
* To Autumn - 9,848
* The Lucy poems - 4,889
* The Drapier's Letters - 1,175
* Ode on Indolence - 1,049
* The Author's Farce - 636
* Early life of Samuel Johnson - 535
* Christopher Smart's asylum confinement - 507
* Nicolo Giraud - 469
* The Covent-Garden Journal - 369

When you divide your article view stats by the mean for all visited articles, they approach zero relevance with great rapidity.

Happy to help.

[chrisoff]

Summary recommendations:

*For authors" change drive from "number of stickers" to "total viewed content Featured/Good".

*For FA program: elect leaders, recruit new writers, improve FAC processes.

*For WMF managements: support community efforts by addressing the quality gap publicly.

Upgrading the high-view articles is high "band for the buck". A few people can drive significant, visible improvements for the public's encyclopedia.

[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.

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.

You are familiar with the TV series entitled House I take It? That's what people are looking for, not some rambling essay on places in which people live.

[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.

You are familiar with the TV series entitled House I take It? That's what people are looking for, not some rambling essay on places in which people live.

Sorry! It's House as in the structure! Look it up!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House

See http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/House

Remember, we aren't all middle class western academics.

This post has been edited by chrisoff:

[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.

[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.

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.

You are familiar with the TV series entitled House I take It? That's what people are looking for, not some rambling essay on places in which people live.

Sorry! It's House as in the structure! Look it up!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House

See http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/House

Remember, we aren't all middle class western academics.

No need to apologise for being a complete dick. If you give it just a moment's thought you'll see that your talking complete and utter rubbish, as per usual.