Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20110706/Feature

Feature: Developing Good and Featured Topics

 *  Submitted by David Fuchs and Guyinblack25 

Featured and Good topics are collections of interrelated articles of a high quality. Since 2005, more than 100 featured topics have been successfully nominated, although some have since been delisted or subsumed by other topics. WikiProject Video Games has of writing five featured topics and an additional ten good topics, not including topics outside of the the "video gaming" or "everyday life" categories.

Identifying the scope
Every good or featured topic has a main or lead article that defines the topic. The other articles and lists in the topic should expand on the information in the main article. Some topics are too broad to be featured, such as a single "Video games" grouping; a more specific grouping such as Guitar Hero series, meanwhile, is acceptable. A good rule of thumb when determining which articles expand on the main article is to see which sections of the main article use the and  templates. An additional consideration is that there cannot be any gaps in coverage—if some of the potential articles in the topic are not yet good or featured, don't try and change the logical topic to exclude them!

For example, the Final Fantasy VIII topic is about the game as a whole. The main article is Final Fantasy VIII. The remaining articles in the topic are: Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, Music of Final Fantasy VIII, and Squall Leonhart. The first two are linked in the main Final Fantasy VIII article with the Main template and expand on specific aspects of the game. The remaining article is about a specific character. If other specific character articles existed, then they too would be part of the topic's scope.

How do you create a featured or good topic?
The hardest part of crafting a good or featured topic is making sure that every potential topic article is either a featured or good article. Any articles that are too short or unstable to pass an audited process are peer-reviewed—for example, an article about an as-yet-unreleased video game. There need to be at least three articles in a topic, which all relate to each other in a clear way.

Whether a topic is considered "good" or "featured" depends on the percentage of the articles that are featured in the topic. Based on the criteria, at least 50% of the articles must be featured (with a minimum of two) to be considered a featured topic; any other topic with all audited, good articles or featured lists is a good article. A good topic can be promoted to a featured topic if it reaches the threshold after initial promotion; conversely, featured topics that no longer meet the stricter criteria can be moved to a good topic list. You can also nest smaller subtopics inside of larger ones.

If you're interested in seeing about creating a video games or other featured or good topic, make sure none are undergoing reassessments that would jeopardize the topic (such as featured article reviews or good article reassessments.) If you are unsure if the topic meets the criteria, you can ask others at Wikipedia talk:Featured topic questions. After a topic nomination is successful, the delegate closes the nomination and a special tag is added to the ArticleHistory template on the talk page to link to the topic. Additional articles can be added to a featured or good topic, but they must go through another supplementary nomination to verify that they still meet criteria. Good luck!