User:Karanacs/Dispatches

User:Karanacs/ActiveDispatch This page is for my drafts of potential dispatch articles for the Wikipedia Signpost. 18:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

FAC Process Overview
The Featured Article Process is a method to gain consensus as to whether an article is ready to become a Featured Article (FA). FAs exemplify Wikipedia's very best work and meet the FA criteria. Everyone is encouraged to nominate articles to become FA, but those new to the process might find it a little daunting.

How do I know whether to nominate an article?
First, it might be wise to read through several Featured Articles that are similar to the topic that you are interested in to see how they are laid out. If you think your article might be of similar quality, but you aren't sure, you can request a peer review or nominate the article for Good Article status (but not at the same time). When those reviews have finished and you have addressed any concerns (or if you've chosen not to take those steps first), check the article against the FA criteria. Read through the Manual of Style and make sure your sources are formatted correctly. When you are happy with your article, nominate it for FA status.

Who reviews the articles?
Articles are reviewed by volunteers. Although some people regularly review FA candidates, others may review only one or two articles they are interested in. Volunteers find the article through several methods:
 * It's listing at the FA Candidates Page.
 * The list of urgent FACs, which is posted on many user talk pages and on the FAC talk page, to alert people to FA candidates which have few comments.
 * The notice on the article's talk page.
 * Notifications made at appropriate WikiProjects.

A nominator should be sure to notify the article's WikiProjects, but should be careful to avoid canvassing individuals on their talk pages. There may be up to 100 FA candidates at one time, so make your nomination text stand out. Include a brief (very brief) explanation of the article topic in your nomination (people may think House Martin is a weird name for a person but it is actually a bird). Make sure the nomination text is spelled correctly and uses proper grammar, or reviewers may decide the article must be written poorly too and bypass your article. Overall, be polite and timely in responding to comments, or other reviewers may decide to move on to a different article.

When is the FA nomination over?
The featured article director and his able assistant read through each nomination to determine whether consensus says that the article is at FA status. Generally, an article will not be supported if it does not have at least three supports. Candidates that have numerous actionable objections (not countingWP:IDONTLIKEIT) may not be promoted. As the nominator addresses concerns, reviewers will often strike their objections and become either neutral or support the article. Candidates are usually given ample time to reach consensus, and if the nominator is actively working to address the more serious concerns a nomination will often remain open longer than one in which the nominator is not addressing concerns.

If your article was not promoted, don't be discouraged; that only means your article wasn't ready for FA status now, not that it never will be. Address any outstanding comments by reviewers, get another peer review, or visit the League of Copyeditors for a copyedit. When you feel you've done all the work you could on the article and it now meets the standards, nominate the article again.

If an article has not received enough comments to determine consensus, or if the comments have gotten so long that the FA Director and his delegates can no longer make sense of the page, a nomination may be restarted. This places that candidate back at the top of the list, with a clean FA comment page, to allow other reviewers to comment. In this case, it is acceptable to let the previous reviewer's know that the nomination has been restarted and they can comment again, but only if you remind all reviewers, and not just those who previously supported the article.

FAC History
shortest article promoted: ??

Development of the FAC process
User:Bmills began the first process of recognizing quality articles on the English Wikipedia. Users were encouraged to list articles they believed to be of high quality at [[Wikipedia:Brilliant Prose.  In June 2003, Eloquence proposed that the system be modified to be more like a system on the German wikipedia.  In the new consensus-gathering process, users could still nominate any article for Brilliant Prose status, although self-nominations were required to be seconded.  If no objections were registered within one week, the article would be promoted.  On July 6, 2003, three articles were simultaneously promoted to "Brilliant Prose" status as part of this new process :
 * Aztalan State Park, a self-nomination from User:JohnOwens
 * Same-sex marriage nominated by Eloquence; primary contributor at the time was User:Montrealais
 * MKULTRA - nominated by Eloquence; primary contributors were User:The Anome, User:Kwertii, and User:Maury Markowitz

In November 2003, User:Fuzheado proposed that the system be changed to be more similar to Wikipedia processes such as RfA and AFD. Rather than simply avoid objections, a candidate would be required to gain support before it could be promoted. This process evolved into our current Featured Article candidacy (FAC) system. At the suggestion of User:Kingturtle, the predecessor to the Featured Article review (FAR) process was initiated in December 2003.

User:Raul654 first proposed recognizing these new featured articles with a prominent spot on the Main Page. For several months Raul654 was the primary contributor to choosing the articles for the main page, and in August 2004, he was officially ratified as the Featured Article director.