Wikipedia:Today's featured article/amendment proposal

The proponent continues to edit this proposal. Prior rejected versions and discussions can be seen at
 * Rejection 1
 * Rejection 2

TFA eligible 2003-5 FA promotions
Source: 2003 FA Promotions, 2004 FA Promotions, and 2005 FA Promotions

TFA/R queue backlog
Source Today's_featured_article/requests

Given the problem with the growing backlog, the main page FA process needs to be changed to
 * fairly accommodate an FA production rate of more than 30/month;
 * fairly accommodate a large backlog of promoted FAs;
 * fairly accommodate a continually increasing FA production rate;
 * fairly include a desirable pool of selectors for TFAs;
 * be a positive experience for as many participants as possible (by introducing them to other articles, introducing them to new techniques such as wikitables, etc.);
 * appease those whose hard work in the FA promotion process does not result in a TFA.
 * retain the integrity of WP:FA, WP:FAC, and WP:FAR.
 * uphold the collaborative values of wikipedia (especially pursuit of betterment of the encyclopedia).
 * ratain the support of the majority of those involved in the process and not just a select few trying to WP:OWN the process.
 * maintain a TFA balance between the proportion of mainstream popular topics and specialized topics selected.
 * retain, if not augment, the prestige of TFA selection.

Summary
The chart above documents a problem that is resulting from extremely successful WP:FA production (data from WP:TFA/R). You can see FA production growth at the featured article log. The TFA/R backlog growth over the last 9 months points to this fact. I have been informed that the recent rate of FA promotion is about 1.85/day. This is a minor concern in comparison to the fact that this rate is accelerating. Two years ago the rate was about 1/day. Two years from now the new FA promotion rate could be 3.5-4/day. Solutions of slowing FA promotion and speeding TFA (multiple TFAs per day) have been mentioned. Both would delay the time when the promotion rate is too high, but not eliminate its likelihood in the future. I don't think either will be feasible with continued FA promotion rate growth. Suppose growth continues and FA promotion is 10 what it is today at some time in the future. At 18.5 promotions per day (500+/month) neither of those solutions will still solve the problem. A random selection would solve the problem, but if you believe some FAs are better than others (at least in terms of main page suitability) this is not an optimal solution. Therefore, I think a selective TFA process is a better alternative. I propose that as soon as May 1st this selective process be instituted. In short, the procedure would add two new statuses, TFAC and FTFAC. These are specifically for featured article class articles that have been nominated to become main page TFAs. FA, FAC, would remain the same as they are now. However, FAs could then attempt to become TFAs by going through a TFAC process.

More input is generally a better thing on wikipedia. My proposal would increase the input in the process. Personally, I believe the collective consensus of the authors of a the top 0.075% of all Wikipedia articles should be viewed somewhat like the collective decisions of a Law Review board for a law journal or an Editorial Board of a refereed science journal. There may be a mild popularity bias. However, I believe converting the TFA/R process to a competitive TFAC process will encourage editors to make their articles better relative to other TFACs and increase the caliber of the finest articles. Also, the attention given to carryover TFACs may bring them editorial assistance. Furthermore, there exists both a quality and a priority scale. (See for example the WP:BIO priority scale). Should low, mid, top, and high priority articles all have equal chance to become TFAs? I think in a selective system, higher priority articles would have a deserved advantage. I think this would serve to motivate people to spend more time cleaning up higher priority articles. It is my belief that in my proposed system a top priority article like Michael Jordan would have an advantage over say George Washington Dixon. I think we should want a system that places greater emphasis on higher priority articles if we truly believe they are higher priority articles. This will motivate people to improve the highest priority articles.

The current Featured Articles Director, Raul654, expresses concern over maintaining the hopes of aspiring contributors for selection. Three things should help protect the interests of some esoteric topics by members of smaller interest groups. 1.) Allowing each person only a few votes increases the possibility that a smaller interest group could successfully gain acknowledgment for an important and interesting editorial contribution. If we allow each voter many votes, block voting might crowd out the smaller interest groups.  2.) Listing carryovers  at the top will help articles build support over successive months. 3.) Exempting carryovers with the greatest tenure (exceeding 3 months, ties broken by total votes during the carryover tenure) in each month with 31 days as the 31st selection would provide another possibility for smaller interest groups.

Some say it is unfair to designate any article promoted to WP:FA as ineligible for WP:TFA for a year based solely on the collective consensus of all of those who are concerned about main page content. Many would rather have constant TFA eligibility of all FAs regardless of whether there are hundreds or thousands of such articles at any given time and regardless of the collective consensus of all of those who are concerned about main page content. Some detractors would prefer not to give TFA selection power to the people and retain it for a select few (possibly themselves). Some do not trust the judgment of authors who have produced FAs to judge good desirable articles for TFA fearing such authors may turn the selection into a popularity contest.

There is some concern about the policy of date requests, but I see little reason why a higher finishing article with no date preference should block a lower finishing TFA from a desired date. All articles with non-conflicting date preferences would get their preferred dates. Then date choice by quintile among the top 30 would occur. Conflicting date preferences would be decided by votes as first tie breaker. The newer selection would get the date as a second tie breaker (favoring articles that get a certain level of support in fewer attempts).

This process would add an additional element of prestige because we could assess the “best” TFA of the month (highest vote recipient) and possibly have year end TFA of the year elections among the 12 TFA of the months. Each month 1 of the 30 TFAs may be designated as TMFA and each year one TMFA could be promoted to TYFA. Currently there are 130 articles at TFA/R. An additional benefit of this process is that it would enable all but 30 candidates to know within 20 days whether their article will be on the main page in the next month.

If this system should ever be invoked, it will be the responsibility of the TFA Director to determine all TFA eligible articles that have no spokesperson. These include articles with unknown or inactive nominators. It could extend to articles with active nominators who no longer are interested in further promotion of the article. Once such articles have been determined, the Director will nominate them over the course of the first 12 months of this start of this process.

Procedure
Any eligible FA may be nominated as a TFAC to become a main page TFAs. Nominate an FA for next month's election following the sample nomination edit below. TFACs should be added sequentially. The most recent nominations should be added at the bottom. With rare exceptions, images are limited to 100px. In any month TFAC nominations can only be made for the following month. Depending on the number of calendar days in the following month between 28 and 30 top vote getters will advance to main page FA status. A 31st exemption will be chosen as outline above for 31 day months. The next 30 top vote getters (and all those tied for 30th runner up) will retain TFAC status and again be eligible next month. As the FA promotion rate grows and the TFAC count grows, the carryover rule would switch so that all articles in the top 25% get carried over. All other articles will become FTFACs and will not be eligible for renomination as a TFAC for another year.

All nominating users must vote for three articles (likely their own nominee and two other articles). Failing to cast a total of three unique votes will make a nominator's votes invalid. Any other registered user may also cast three unique votes. Vote in a manner similar to the sample vote edit below. Voting runs from the beginning of the month through the twentieth day of the month. Reciprocal voting (where 2 parties mutually agree to vote for each other’s nominees without considering the merits of other articles) is discouraged.

The successful TFACs will select their own main page dates in the following month’s queue based on their finish in the voting. The top 6 places choose their dates during the first 2 days after voting ends. The next 6 the following 2 days and so on until the end of the month.

Failed TFACs (FFTFACs) must wait one year from the close of voting to regain TFAC status. Given the continued escalation of standards for featured articles any FA that is not being carried over from the prior month and has gone more than a year and a half since being evaluated in a FAC candidacy, FFAR keep decision or repromotion must confirm support from the majority of those who supported their original FAC candidacy, FFAR keep decision or repromotion in order to seek TFA status. All failed TFACs must confirm support from their applicable support group in order to seek nomination after the one year wait. All TFACs and FTFACs would be subject to FAR and FARC procedures. Three consecutive failed attempts to gain majority support will initiate a WP:FAR.

For specific date requests up to 5 words could be added in parenthesis following the (more) parentheses. Any additional words would count against the word limit. Examples would be (June 24 subject Birthday), (May 5 War Start Date), (June 20 League Championship Date), (August 23 Movie/album release date), (Jan 16 Federal Holiday), (June 15 author Birthday), (May 12 author wikipedia anniversary), & (Feb is Black History Month).

Administrative oversight
Administrators will be involved in the following elements of this process


 * 1) Nomination procedure - Especially word count violations (For each word over the word limit a nominee will be penalized 1 vote), mid month nomination attempts
 * 2) Voting procedure - Espcecially monitoring vote changes, two part votes (voting for two today and a third next week)
 * 3) Reciprocal voting - Any indication of reciprocal voting (as determined by an administrator) especially from user talk pages will cancel both votes.  However, coincidental identical votes naturally occur (especially from members of the same WikiProjects).
 * 4) Canvassing - Also, canvassing as determined by an administrator will make a TFAC ineligible for promotion and cause its candidacy to be delayed by one month.  Friendly notices would generally be considered canvassing if they go to parties other than WikiProjects that were on an articles talk page prior to promotion to TFAC status.
 * 5) Block voting - Abusive incessant block voting (as determined by an administrator) will also be penalized.

Should I be elected at WP:RFA, I would volunteer to assist in a conversion to this process and in ongoing administration.

New Nominees (sample layout)
See a sample nomination edit.

Votes (sample layout)

 * Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Calvin Coolidge, Arctic Tern User:Foo 09:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Bill Russell, Charles Darwin, The Simpsons User:FooUTwice 16:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Bill Russell, Military brat (U.S. subculture) User:FooBoo 22:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Celine Dion, Campbell's Soup Cans, Cell Nucleus TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 16:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Celine Dion, Campbell's Soup Cans, Bill Russell User:FoosGold 16:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

See a sample voting edit.

Survey

 * Add  # Support   or   # Oppose   on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~ .  Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

Survey - in support of the move
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Survey - in opposition to the move
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Discussion
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