Wikipedia:BrilliantProse

Wikipedia does rock. By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there are 14 not-bad articles so far [out of an estimated 184 total], and that's great.

The "modern" (so to speak) process of Featured Article candidacy was created on 24 June 2003 by User:Eloquence. Prior to that time Wikipedia had a system known as Brilliant Prose to recognize its best content, which was an ad hoc collection of articles added to the Brilliant prose page by various editors.

Due to the UseModWiki software in place during 2001 and early 2002, a large number of edits from that era do not survive to the modern day in the main Wikipedia edit history database. However, Tim Starling discovered a backup database that contained all the edits that had been thereto lost to history. In the case where the relevant diffs do not survive, and when the 10K redux doesn't maintain a record (i.e., anything after 8 March 2001), users have manually reconstructed the versions using Starling's archives and created a subpage for the version, crediting the original author(s) in the subpage-creation edit summary. Many of the earlier pages have odd capitalization due to software considerations of the time. The capitalization of the initial letters of each page are as they appear in the relevant entry of the logs verbatim, due to software both then and now it is irrelevant; this case insensitivity does not apply to other letters in a page's title.

Starting in November 2001 these additions are readily available in the [merged] page history of Featured articles. This page commemorates the earlier process and contains history up to 17 August 2001. There are some missing edits from August to November 2001 which have as yet not been found.

First light
This was the initial revision of BrilliantProse from 23:53, 21 January 2001:

 Somebody thinks the following WikiPedia pages are "brilliant prose" or at least pretty damn good:

TheCanonofScripture -- MathematicalGrouP -- NewZealand --

And the following are looking very promising:

BallroomDance -- ChristianIty -- DirectRealism -- EuroCurrency -- OpenContent --

and this is the revision from 00:02, 22 January 2001, which was current when the first Wikipedia-l email referencing "14 not-bad articles so far" was sent:

 Somebody thinks the following WikiPedia pages are "brilliant prose" or at least pretty damn good:

TheCanonofScripture -- MathematicalGrouP -- NewZealand -- PythagoreanTheorem -- SabBath -- TaoTehChing -- TheMostRemarkableFormulaInTheWorld -- TheRecorder

And the following are looking very promising:

BallroomDance -- ChristianIty -- DirectRealism -- EuroCurrency -- OpenContent -- PrettyGoodPrivacy

Well, whatever these articles are, they sure aren't PatentNonsense!

First criteria for inclusion (May 2001)
(1) copious original content; (2) good writing; (3) clarity for the person who doesn't know what the topic is about (after all, this is an encyclopedia!); (4) whimsy. --Larry Sanger

March
On 23 March 2001, 17:23:44, Sanger changed the following links to the recently-available free links, at which point the pages were automatically moved:
 * The Canon of Scripture
 * Pythagorean Theorem
 * Tao Teh Ching
 * The Most Remarkable Formula In The World
 * The Recorder
 * Gladstone Oregon

(The current CamelCase PythagoreanTheorem page appears to be a later creation on 4 April 2001 19:17:34 by JimboWales.)

Seconds later, at 17:23:51, he then created the page Brilliant prose to take advantage of the new syntax, on which all subsequent activity took place. No new pages were promoted at that time.

May
In the 26 May 2001, 08:00:45 edit, Sanger proposed the first ever criteria for inclusion to the list, the predecessor of the WP:FACR, albeit describing it only as his personal criteria for including articles. Verbatim except for formatting, the criteria were: "(1) copious original content;       (2) good writing;         (3) clarity for the person who doesn't know what the topic is about (after all, this is an encyclopedia!);         (4) whimsy."

Criterion 1 is nowadays expected of all articles due to WP:COPYVIO, WP:PLAGIARISM, etc. Criteria 2 and 3 are the spiritual predecessors of modern criteria 1a and 1b, respectively, and together broadly represented by 1 and 2. Criterion 4 is no longer a part of FAC, but personal whims would be a part of the process until at least 2003. In addition, he standardized Alchemy's capitalization (albeit to lowercase "alchemy", irrelevant due to link canonicalization). He also demoted The Canon of Scripture, MathematicalGrouP, NewZealand, SabBath, Tao Teh Ching, The Most Remarkable Formula In The World, The Recorder, Gladstone Oregon, and AlchemY to "look promising". Ten seconds later he reverted the edit to the version as of the end of January, but it would be restored on 08:02:26 and the "o" in Hammond Organ capitalized.

On 26 May 2001, 09:18:40, Sanger added the following: political correctness -- Renaissance Classicism -- Mannerism/Art -- Baroque/Art -- game theory -- Game (this whole area is excellent) -- Go -- Poker (amazing!) -- Sheepshead -- Bridge -- video game (a great start) -- Stone, Paper, Scissors -- Wikipedia FAQ

On 29 May 2001, 08:17:43, Sanger added History of England.

On 30 May 2001, 01:08:10, Qatsi added negligence.

Mid-August to mid-November
The Starling logs end on 17 August 2001 05:26:02. The earliest surviving revision of the modern FA page is on 14 November 2001 19:50. The following articles had been added to the list in the interim. Since the exact times of their additions can't be known for certain, neither can their "featured versions", so in lieu of such the earliest surviving revision of the given page is provided, or if that revision predates 17 August 2001 05:26:02 the earliest revision after that time.


 * September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack (added on or after 11 September, earliest surviving revision at that title here; also see very earliest history at, particularly this edit)

November
In response to the spate of self-nominations, 61.9.128.xxx added the following to the page on 27 November, 23:34: "Be aware that you are most likely not the best judge of your own work. Even if you think a page you have contributed a large majority of the content to is brilliant, it is best that you wait for somebody else to recognise it as such."

This is somewhat the opposite of modern practice, but an extraordinary amount of time has happened in that span.