User:Transatracurium/Sandbox/Central A-class proposal

Much has been said recently regarding the problems with the FAC process, with two major complaints being that there are not enough reviewers in the process to keep up with the number of nominations, and that the process is a particularly hostile one for editors to take their articles through. As a result, it is proposed that a complementary process, provisionally referred to as FAC-B (for before), to be set up to assist editors wishing to achieve the FA standard on articles they are contributing to. This process would take the form of a preparatory assessment service, which would help make improvements to articles so that they meet the FA criteria before they go to FAC, and also provide a central service for assessing and assigning A-class status. The process would be entirely optional for editors, and would likely be assembled by merging the WikiProject-specific A-class review systems into one central point, possibly by forming a new WikiProject A-class to underpin the process. The aim would be for articles to be held to the same high scrutiny as FAC so that they can then complete the highly-charged FAC process with a minimum of stress. In order to facilitate this, the process is intended to be considerably more friendly, helpful and open than FAC, with no time limit on nomination length and an ethos which would mean that, instead of being told of their article's faults, being offered no help and having their nominations failed, editors would receive assistance from reviewers to help the articles reach the required standard. Once the articles have been improved to the relevant standards, they would be assigned A-class status and be declared "FAC-ready". At this point they can be nominated at the main FAC and, theoretically, have a smooth and quick journey through that process with editors confident that all preparatory work had already been completed. In addition, each article would have a FAC-B reviewer assigned to it at FAC to assist the nominator in making any further changes necessary and to help keep records as to the performance of the FAC-B assessment process.

Proposed process
The review process would proceed as follows:
 * 1) Editors wishing to have their article reviewed by FAC-B would set up a review request in a manner similar to that currently used at WP:PR, with the request being added to the list at WP:FAC-B.
 * 2) The article would be checked for GA status and, if this is extant, the request will be accepted.
 * 3) The article's recent assessment history would then be reviewed, to see if any relevant reviews have taken place, such as a copyedit, copyvio check, alt text check and so on. These would then be listed on the nomination and, if reviewers are happy with the thoroughness of said reviews, those areas would be checked off as completed.
 * 4) The reviewers would then go on to complete any other reviews that had not been completed and check the article met all of the FA criteria, especially areas in which FAC itelf is lacking, such as WP:ACCESSIBILITY.
 * 5) In the event any areas of the article are found to be lacking relative to the criteria, the reviewers would endeavour to make any corrections needed or provide assistance to the nominator to make these changes. Comments which do not offer solutions to the relevant problems would be strongly discouraged.
 * 6) Once all reviewers are confident that the article meets the FA criteria, a senior reviewer would close the review as 'FAC-ready', assign the article A-class status and identify a reviewer to assist the nominator in taking the article through a full FAC nomination.
 * 7) At FAC, the nominator and assigned reviewer could then make any further changes necessary to pass (which should be minimal). The reviewer would also have the experience to be able to deal with any unreasonable demands at FAC, and, by monitoring the nomination, could call in assistance from other FAC-B reviewers if necessary.
 * 8) Once the process is completed, a record would be made of the article, the FAC-B nomination, the FAC nomination and the eventual outcome (failed FAC, passed FAC with changes, passed FAC without changes, or not FAC nominated) on an archives page.

Phases of implementation
To ensure that the process is as efficient and open as possible, a two-stage implementation would be carried out.
 * 1) For an initial period, for instance the first three months (although this should be considered a placeholder timeframe), reviewers would be gaining experience in how to complete the process, and nominations would be closed simply by the most involved reviewer. Once the initiation period is completed, each reviewers' statistics (kept in the archives) would be presented, and senior reviewers would be selected by a !vote in a similar method to that used at RfA. If the community decides it is needed, democratic elections could also be held for an overall coordinator of the process, who would be selected from the senior reviewers.
 * 2) The second phase would be the standard operation of the process. Nominations would be closed only by senior reviewers in order to maintain quality, although any reviewers would be able to nominate themselves to be put forward for senior reviewer status. Records would be reviewed regularly to make any necessary alterations to the process and ensure senior reviewers are only passing articles which meet the criteria.