User:TonyTheTiger/sandbox/FOURRFC

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Recently there has been a lot of controversy over three issues at WP:FOUR.
 * 1) Should the project change the definition of the starting point of a new article from the point at which the article has its first encyclopedic content (readable prose that presents the notability of a topic) to the point at which it first appears in main article space with a 24 hour window. These definitions differ drastically when an article is created in userspace or a sandbox.
 * 2) Does User:TonyTheTiger have any authority over the project as his self-proclaimed title of Director might imply
 * 3) Can editors withdraw their names and articles from the list of awarded authors and articles. Note controversy involved both erasing one's name from the list (replaced with [placeholder]) and removing the whole article's line of dates from the table.

Additional issues related to this RFC: FYI-parties and projects contacted directly for this RFC: the 167 current FOUR awardees, WP:CREATE, WP:DYK, WP:GA, WP:GAC, WP:FA, WP:FAC, and WP:FOUR.
 * 1) Should collaboration be allowed by the project?
 * 2) Should the project keep track of former FOUR-awarded articles?

Details
The FOUR award is a recognition for persons who have made a significant difference in each stage of the development of a WP:FA, based on the four stages recognized by the project. Currently stage one of the development of a featured article is defined as the creation of the article (when the first encyclopedic content is added to the article). Operationally, this means the stage during which the first readable prose that defines a notable topic is added to an article.

Proponents of the rule change suggest that people involved in a collaboration begun outside of article space during its first 24 hours should be FOUR eligible. They also discuss diffs showing intention of being involved in the article before it was ever created, but have not stated whether one must show diffs of commitment prior to the article's creation.

This proposal enables those who did not make a difference at every currently-defined stage, but who made a difference in the article soon enough (within 24 hours) after not making a difference in the first stage and who may have diffs showing an interest in making a difference at each stage to be FOUR-eligible.

Why is this important
Hundreds of articles have been evaluated using the same criteria. New criteria could impact the awarded articles in several ways. Moving from the addition of encyclopedic content to the mainspace entry date could lead to the following changes.

Example: Some people worked together outside of mainspace and moved the article and its article history into mainspace later. The very first edit was an encyclopedic edit and was by someone who was not involved in all stages that would result in a FOUR. Other editors who were part of this group were involved in all stages that would result in a FOUR.
 * Some articles go from Rejected to FOUR-awarded

Example: An article is created in user/sandbox space for 50 edits before the article and its article history are moved into mainspace. It achieves DYK with its 75th edit. Suppose that after moving the article to mainspace, the article was nominated by someone else who cleaned it up for DYK with the last 25 edits. Formerly, this article might have been a FOUR because edits 2-50 and 51-75 were the DYK phase. Now, Only edits 51-75 are the DYK phase. and the article would fail FOUR.
 * Some articles go from FOUR-awarded to rejected

Example: and 's Lockheed C-130 Hercules in Australian service, which lead to these discussions is an example: The first encyclopedic content is added by one of them in user/sandbox space. They expand the article collaboratively. Then one of them moves it to article space. They collaborate at DYK, GA and FA. Based on first encyclopedic content only one of them would be eligible for the award. If the userspace/sandbox article history is known to the reviewer the person who started the article in userspace would be the awardee. If the article history is not known to the reviewer, the person who moves the article into mainspace would be the awardee. Under the proposed revised rules both would be awardees.
 * Some articles go from a single awarded editor to multiple awarded editors

Example: Editor 1 starts a WikiProject collaboration in the project's sandbox with a underconstruction template and the project's WP:COTW template at the top. Then, editor 2 is a COTW participant who over the course of 100 edits adds 10 KB of readable prose with 50 WP:ICs. The first edit of those 100 was "Mrs. Foo is an XYZ award-winning Goo.", which clearly defines the article about Mrs. Foo as an encyclopedic topic assuming the XYZ award is sufficient to make someone notable among those who are in the Goo profession. Following the COTW, the main editor moves that article from the sandbox and nominates the article for the various FOUR stages. From the first encyclopedic content with the perspective the two individuals who made the first two edits would have been collaborators in the transition from a redlink to an encyclopedic topic. Under the mainspace date rule, the first editor made such a trivial contribution to the creation stage that he would not be a collaborator.
 * Some articles go from multiple awarded editors to a single awarded editor

Issue 1 - Changing the criteria
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Background
Since this project began 446 articles have been approved and 345 have been rejected (considering only current WP:FAs that have been both WP:GAs and WP:DYKs in the past according to its T:AH). I.e. a total of 791 articles that have been DYKs, GAs and FAs have been reviewed. All of these have been reviewed for contribution by the same editor to the four stages based on the first stage being defined as the point at which the article has its first encyclopedic content. None of them have ever been reviewed based on the first stage being defined as the point at which the article first appears in main article space. Changing the criteria will change the set of passing articles pending re-review of them all (if there are any volunteers willing to review the articles by the new criteria).

Vote
Please add # followed by your signature to one of the below subsections to show your support

Support - original criteria based on the first encyclopedic content

 * 1) Support. There is no need to change this.   GregJackP   Boomer!   07:00, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion
Feel free to discuss your support above.
 * Tony, you don't offer any chance for alternative time periods here. As I've said elsewhere, this RFC is confusing the issue. The criteria change here should be its own discussion, after other issues are dealt with, as there are hundreds of thousands of ways of reworking the criteria. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:27, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * This is clearer than the other one, at least to me.  GregJackP   Boomer!   07:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Issue 2 - Should the project have a Director
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Background, pt 1
This has been a small project with only two regular editors ( and ). Tony has curated the project for four years under the self proclaimed title of Director. However, with only two regulars, any group of 4 or 5 people who decide they want to change the project around can declare Tony's authority invalid and claim WP:CONSENSUS to change the project to be whatever they want. One solution is to authorize a directorship.

Vote, pt 1
Please add # followed by your signature to one of the below subsections to show your support

Support having a Director

 * 1) Support.  GregJackP   Boomer!   07:01, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Support not having a Director

 * 1) I've not seen any evidence that it's necessary - or that this RfC is anything but an attempt by Tony to neatly sidestep future complaints by being able to point to a justification for not following consensus that amounts to more than "I was here first". Ironholds (talk) 07:32, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion, pt 1

 * Redundant to extant RFC. Should be deleted. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:27, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree. This is much clearer than the first RfC.  GregJackP   Boomer!   07:02, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Background, pt 2
&#x5b;[ edit this section]&#x5d; TTT has done the vast majority of the work to keep the project running over the last 4 years. And even the majority of this RFC, setting up possible changes, was prepared by TTT. He has reviewed the vast majority of candidates and made the vast majority of promotions. He has established most of the policies by which the project is run. Little Mountain 5 has also been a consistent contributor and probably knows enough to run the project. He is one of many potential candidates in an open election. The history of the project and its potential leaders is largely told by its edit histories: Four Award (edit counts), Wikipedia talk:Four Award (edit counts), Four Award/Records (edit counts), Wikipedia talk:Four Award/FAQ (edit counts).

Vote, pt 2
Please add # followed by your signature to one of the below subsections to show your support

TonyTheTiger should not necessarily be Director if we have one

 * 1) This, although I am generally opposed to having a director. Ironholds (talk) 07:33, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion, pt 2

 * Redundant to extant RFC. Should be deleted. Also, this question's background section is not neutral (and the fact that Tomas created the rules in his first edition of this page belies your claims). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:27, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I also find the fact that the first RfC seems to be dominated by WP:MILHIST members concerning, especially since this is not a MilHist award.   GregJackP   Boomer!   07:12, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I also find the fact that the first RfC seems to be dominated by WP:MILHIST members concerning, - Khazar is not a milhist member, and the only reason a lot of them are turning out is because a lot of them have the talk page watchlisted after the last fiasco. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:30, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't say that Khazar was a MilHist guy, just that I don't think this award should be dominated or run according to the methods used at MilHist.  GregJackP   Boomer!   07:36, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Issue 3 - Disassociation
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Background
and collaborated on Lockheed C-130 Hercules in Australian service by creating the article in user space. They transfered the article to main space. determined that this article only qualified one editor for the FOUR award based on the encyclopedic content rule. However, several editors felt that the main space appearance rule was better. Tony has refused to recognize this alternate rule, which would have made a second editor, Ian Rose, eligible. This led to three editors (Nick-D,, and ) requesting to disassociate with FOUR by removing a total of 15 articles from the list of FOUR articles (18 articles are now impacted due to recent promotions). Oddly, Ian Rose is not one of the three. Tony attempted to revert these changes by using [placeholder] in place of the user names in hopes of maintaining the historical integrity of the project. His attempts to revert these three editors led to him being blocked from WP for 48 hours by.

One of the byproducts of the FOUR, is a motivation for longtime editors to clean up some of their old neglected articles. Some people strive to clean up their oldest articles so that they can see their article listed high by some of the sort criteria on the project's table. Without the table or with people destroying the table by removing their articles, some of the benefit of FOUR's motivation is lost.

At WP:WBE, it is common to replace your user ID with [placeholder]. At WP:WBFAN, editors may have their user ID removed but it is not clear that they can remove their articles from being included at WP:FA.

Vote
Please add # followed by your signature to one of the below subsections to show your support

Support - Editors may only replace their user ID with "[placeholder]"

 * 1) Support - the article doesn't belong to the editor.  If the article met the original criteria to be here, it should stay.  I don't have a problem with the editor removing their own name though.   GregJackP   Boomer!   07:05, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Redundant to extant RFC. Should be deleted. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:27, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No it should not. GregJackP   Boomer!   07:12, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't "request" to "disassociate with FOUR" - I removed the award for the C-130 Hercules article which had been wrongly attributed to only me, and left my several other awards in place. There was no "request" involved as I just made this change (and Tony was blocked for reverting me and others when he tried to reinstated), and I'm pleased to have received the awards for the articles in which I did personally take the lead with developing. Nick-D (talk) 08:20, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Issue 4 - Collaboration
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Background
Since the recent controversy revolved around giving FOUR credit to a second editor, we should consider whether we want the FOUR award to be open to collaborative credit. Since the final three stages are clearly easily collaborated on, the issue is whether we consider the start of the article to be a collaborative stage. I.E., do we want the single individual who made the edit that is considered the starting point of the article (first encyclopedic content, article enters main space) or do we want to consider all editors who contributed from the transition from a redlink to an encyclopedic article to be eligible for the award.


 * Encyclopedic content consideration collaboration types
 * 1) Article started from a redirect: The redirector and the article creator who collaborate through DYK, GA and FA.
 * 2) Article recreated after a WP:CSD or WP:AFD: Editors from the deleted article and the recreator who collaborate through DYK, GA and FA.
 * 3) Article started with several edits before the first encyclopedic content: All editors who contributed before the article was encyclopedic who collaborate through DYK, GA and FA.


 * First enters mainspace collaboration types
 * 1) All editors who make a notable contribution to the article before it enters mainspace as an encyclopedic topic.

Vote
Please add # followed by your signature to one of the below subsections to show your support

Support - Only one editor

 * 1) Support  GregJackP   Boomer!   07:06, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Support - All start collaborators
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Discussion
Feel free to discuss your support above.
 * Should certainly be put on hold for now, until we decide what fundamental changes are being made. This is not the main issue with FOUR. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:27, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree.  GregJackP   Boomer!   07:10, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Background
One of the issues raised during the controversy was whether we should retain a list of all formerly recognized FOUR articles. This is analogous to WP:FFA and WP:FFL. Some have raised the issue of removing South Side, Chicago from the list for reasons that may be for no other reason than to contest any authority I claim over the project. No arguments were presented, so I am not clear as to any rationale why we should not retain a list of former FOURs.

Vote
Please add # followed by your signature to one of the below subsections to show your support

Support - Retain complete list

 * 1) Support.  GregJackP   Boomer!   07:14, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion
Feel free to discuss your support above.
 * This is 1) not related to the other issues and 2) nowhere near neutrally phrased. "for no other reason than to contest any authority I claim over the project. No arguments were presented", as I showed in the edit you reverted twice, is decidedly untrue. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:27, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It is exactly related to the other issues. What's the difference between a good article and a former good article?  We keep lists of both.  Letting someone pull it off the list like they WP:OWN the article isn't appropriate.   GregJackP   Boomer!   07:16, 20 August 2013 (UTC)