User:Scorpion0422/State of the FL process

I would like to start off by clarifying a few things. This page is a summary of my thoughts on where the Featured List process is now (March 2009). I made it because I hope to generate discussion and an overall review of the process. I am not trying to start drama, nor am I trying to criticize or blame anyone. My comments are all general statements and do not apply to any one user. I am not criticizing Matthewedwards, the reviewers (especially not Dabomb87 or Truco, their reviews have kept the process alive the past few months) or the editors who are simply doing what they are supposed to: improving content. If it sounds like I am blaming anyone in particular (other than myself), I apologize. It was not my intention.

For those who don't know what is going on, let me bring you up to date. Yesterday, I started a discussion in which I complained about music award lists (An Awards list rant). I left negative comments on two active FLCs (one and two) and then decided to test the water by nominating a list for removal. This morning I proposed a new criterion that I hope will stop content forks and usefulness-impaired lists from becoming FLs. So now, I decided to make a somewhat rambling page which summarizes my opinions.

My epiphany or: How I learned to start worrying and question the process
As of late, I've become disinterested in the process. This is partially because I have been working quite a bit on some articles, but it's also partially because I'm bored. Looking through the current FLCs, I see the same types of lists being nominated. That being said, they are nice lists and nothing terrible, but I get the feeling that people are just reaching for the low hanging fruit and working on the easy FLs. A lot of them follow the same format, hence the term "cookie cutter" page (I don't mean it to be derogatory. If a format works, it should be used. But it's true that we have a lot of FLs that are quite similar). So instead of an important page like List of Toronto Maple Leafs seasons you get List of Toronto Maple Leafs head coaches. There's nothing wrong with that, users are welcome to work on whatever they like, but it's frustrating that people are aiming so low. What I am concerned about is that in many cases, pages are created (some with questionable notability) and brought to FL, whereas I would prefer to see more users improve existing pages. Because the majority of FLCs fall under three topics, reviewing the same things over and over again becomes boring and so reviewers are scared away. And the reason we are getting so many FLs in certain topics is because of how easy it has become to get them promoted. The problem isn't that these FLs aren't properly formatted, it's just that they seem to exist just so they can become FLs and that's a problem.

The problem?
I blame four things:
 * Lack of reviewers: Ever since the summer, we have seen a lot of great reviewers become less active, including The Rambling Man, Gary King, Woody, Tony1, Ealdgyth, Gonzo fan2007, Crzycheetah and several others (I apologize if I forgot anyone, I did not intentionally exclude anyone). We have seen some users decide to step in, but the problem is that a lot of FLs are passing because of the opinions of the same two users. This isn't limited to the FL process, most of the other processes are having similar problems.
 * Lack of variety in FLs
 * The lack of a notability/usefulness criterion in WP:WIAFL
 * Me: I have been a terrible director and I take full responsibility for letting the process go to hell. Here is what I did (or rather, did not do):
 * Constantly ignored people's comments and opinions.
 * Rarely reviewed pages. The problem is that I am not a good reviewer, I would rather improve content than review it. As such, I rarely leave more than a few comments (if that). My excuse was that I was trying to avoid it so there would always be a reviewer with a neutral opinion. While that is useful, I still should have reviewed what I could without leaving any supporting/opposing opinion.
 * Did not do my best to uphold FL quality. I saw lots of FL types I disliked that I just passed and I usually left no comments. Sure, promotions are based on consensus, but if I dislike a page, I should say something, rather than pushing it through.
 * And I knew this was happening. I passed these lists, I saw these lists and I did say things, but I never tried to do anything about it.

FL types I think hurt the process

 * The easy FL: I get the feeling that some see FLs as an easy way to take credit for featured content, so they try to create easy FLs. The biggest problem is the rise of FLs for musician awards and nominations. A lot of them are less than 20 items, and contain a lot of awards with questionable notability. Does an artist with a Grammy nomination, a few BRIT awards and a bunch of magazine award nominations deserve a separate page for their awards? I would say no. I see it as content forking and giving undue weight to the idea that awards are as important as a discography. Sub-lists should only exist in the case where a page is too long and that list is given more weight in proportion to the article. So, some are justified like List of awards received by U2, where U2 has won 67 awards, a lot of them major awards, for many different works. But people don't like working on lists like that because they are too hard, so they do the bare minimum. For a lot of those lists, you look at them and say "is that really needed?" At some point, the purpose of these lists has changed from "only needed when length is an issue" to "required for every page." Sure, you see the same thing with articles too, but most of them do not become FAs. However, most of these could be merged and they hurt the process because they encourage people to split off sections from articles just for the sake of getting a FL. And don't say that the table would be too large in that artist/band's page. Julie Kavner is an example, she has actually won more awards than some of the artists that we have FLs for (and they are mostly major awards, none of these radio station or magazine awards) but I don't think that table needs its own page. To be fair, it's not just music awards. There are some similar lists in sports (like first-round draft picks lists. Why not just work on the list for the entire draft? That would be much more useful) and television (like season pages. Does a show that has only been around a couple of seasons really need a page for each one?)
 * Lists that recreate the content of another page and add nothing new. One example: a few months ago, we had several "[insert year] [insert league] all-star game roster" lists. The main all-star game page still had a roster list, and it was actually more detailed than the one that was nominated for FL. Thankfully, that fire was put out before it spread. I believe that sub-lists should only be created in cases where they add something that is not stated in the main page, and there are a few FLs like that.

Other FL types I'm concerned about

 * Articles vs. lists This one is hard to do without citing any examples, but there are several FLs out there for lists characters. They are very nice articles, but they are not lists. One page I've worked on, Simpson family, is a GA and actually has more characters and sections than some FLs, but I think it's an article, so I sent it there.
 * FLs split from a page that left the remaining page a stub with little chance of expansion. These are the least concerning ones, and I don't think they hurt the process. Sure, you get a FL, but you also get a small page. An example is Canada's Walk of Fame and List of inductees of Canada's Walk of Fame. I split them over two years ago and the former is a GA and the latter a FL. The article will likely not get any bigger, so I am strongly considering merging them and having one comprehensive FL rather than a FL will a small lead and a small GA.
 * Very short lists I have no major problem with all small FLs. In some cases, there is independent notability or it is justified for its own page. But the problem again, is that people may question whether or not they are really Wikipedia's best work.

So what to do?
Maybe I am being dramatic and creating a mountain out of a molehill but I think it is time to start examining where the process has gone and whether we want to continue letting it go that direction. We need to re-introduce a notability/usefulness criterion. In light of my failure, I almost decided to step aside as a director, but I would like to stay on and try to improve the process. I am going to do an audit of all FLs and make a list of lists that fit into the above categories.

It's going to take a lot of work and all opinions are welcome. Let's see if we can take the FLC process back to promoting pages that are undoubtably amongst wikipedia's finest work. -- Scorpion 0422  18:06, 20 March 2009 (UTC)