User:Skomorokh/Aristocrats

The featured article awards are awarded annually in recognition of the finest contributions to the featured articles (FA) process.

Intent
The intended purpose of the awards is to encourage productive behaviour in and draw attention to the featured articles (FA) process by recognising excellent contributions, fostering a healthy spirit of competition and engendering a sense of community spirit among FA contributors.

Articles

 * Finest Article. Awarded for the finest featured article of the year.
 * Eligibility: Any article promoted during the previous year.
 * Suffrage: Any editor named as a nominator to a featured article promoted in the previous year.


 * Finest Rescue. Awarded for the finest successful rescuing of an article from being demoted from featured status.
 * Eligibility: Any article sent to featured article removal candidates (or just featured article review?) and either kept or subsequently re-promoted in the previous year.
 * Suffrage: Any editor named as a nominator to a featured article promoted in the previous year.


 * Vital Article (aka Flaming Joel). Awarded for the featured article on the topic of most vital importance to the encyclopaedia.
 * Eligibility: Any article promoted during the previous year.
 * Suffrage: Any editor named as a nominator to a featured article promoted in the previous year.


 * Savant Award. Awarded for the featured article that best encapsulates the encyclopaedia's long tail spirit of devotion to obscure, unusual or otherwise entertaining topic only a savant could write to featured quality.
 * Eligibility: Any article promoted during the previous year.
 * Suffrage: Any editor named as a nominator to a featured article promoted in the previous year.

Editors

 * Finest Writer. Awarded to the best contributor to writing featured articles of the year.
 * Eligibility: Any editor named as a nominator to a featured article promoted in the previous year.
 * Suffrage: Any editor named as a nominator to a featured article promoted in the previous year.


 * Finest Reviewer. Awarded for the best individual contribution to reviewing featured articles candidates during the year.
 * Eligibility: Any editor who commented in a featured article candidacy in the previous year.
 * Suffrage: Any editor named as a nominator to a featured article promoted in the previous year.


 * Lifetime Achievement Award (aka Director's Choice). Awarded to an editor who has made an outstanding contribution to the featured articles process over the years.
 * Eligibility: Any editor who has ever been active in the featured articles process.
 * Suffrage: The featured article director chooses the recipient, with advice from his delegates.

Process
With the exception of the Lifetime Achievement Award, which is chosen at a whim by the featured article director, the process for the awards (loosely modelled on the Oscars) is be as follows:

At the end of the year, a list of eligible voters ("The Academy"), editor candidates and article candidates for the upcoming awards will be drawn up. Nominations will then be open for several weeks, during which eligible voters can support the nomination of as many candidates as they wish. At the end of the nomination period, the five candidates with the most support in each category will be officially nominated. For each nomination, an individual supporter will be asked to write an advocacy statement. The second round of voting will then take place, in which each voter may only vote for one candidate. The award will go to the candidate with the most votes; in the event of a tie, there may be multiple winners.

The awards could be held concurrently with the Oscars or some prestigious literary prize. The timing should not conflict with other major on-wiki goings-on such as the ArbCom elections or the WikiCup. Preferably early in the year due to "previous year" eligibility criteria.

Curtailment
The awards will be discontinued if either the FA community or the broader editing community desire it so.

Frequently anticipated questions

 * Q. An encyclopaedia is supposed to be a serious scholarly endeavour. This looks like some sort of frivolous status exercise that will only encourage social networkers and game-players.
 * A. Unfortunately, the Wikimedia Foundation budget has again omitted the annual bonuses for article writers, so these cheap statues are offered as an alternative means of reimbursement. Seriously though, Wikipedia is not Britannica and never will be. While as editors and particularly as contributors to the featured articles process we aspire to the highest standards of encyclopaedic content, and a professional attitude is worth cultivating, we remain fundamentally a volunteer community of hobbyists whose only reward in most cases is the personal pride we take in our work and the encouragement we offer each other. It is a risk that this type of recognition might attract harmful contributions to the featured article process, and should that turn out to be the case it should be shut down without question. However, it may be that attracting gamers and socialites is a small price to pay for a stronger featured articles process, and may even have productive effects.


 * Q. Isn't this rather elitist? Why isn't every editor allowed to vote? I am a copy-editor/vandal-fighter/administrator, are my contributions not valuable?
 * A. It's intended to be an internal community event, without any official sanction from, claim to importance in, or judgement over the wider wiki and its contributors. The eligibility bar if anything serves as an encouragement to get more editors involved in writing featured articles.


 * Q. Say, just who's in charge of all this anyway?
 * A. It's a wiki... you are!

Related pages

 * List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations
 * WikiCup
 * Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sharkface217/Awards Center
 * User:Casliber/Flaming Joel-wiki
 * User:Durova/Triple crown winner's circle
 * 2009 Military Historians of the Year