Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-01-31/New features

After waiting on the featured article candidates page for almost two weeks, and getting a significant overhaul in the process, Cambodia was finally promoted to featured article status last Sunday.

This was the second attempt to make Cambodia into a featured article. The first nomination, made in December, was universally opposed by those who commented on it. After some additional work, it was resubmitted 17 January.

Again, the first responses were all objections, but the nominator, Squash, tried to tackle these objections point-by-point. (For example, the lead section neglected to mention two things Cambodia is particularly famous for, Angkor Wat and the Khmer Rouge.) A great deal of work went into additional improvements, as the article received an impressive 178 edits while it was nominated, coming out substantially changed by the end.

Particularly active in polishing up the article were Squash and Markalexander100, who was raising most of the objections. At Markalexander100's request, the time for considering it as a featured article candidate was extended, as he commented on Thursday, "I'm optimistic of having this knocked into shape before the end of this week." Looking back on the effort, Ambi commended them both, saying, "This has improved so much since it was nominated."

Other new featured articles and pictures
One of the other new featured articles last week was Battle of Alesia, one of the winners in the second edition of Danny's contest. Also promoted were Roe v. Wade, The Supremes, Weight training, and Hrafnkels saga.

All of the photographs designated as new featured pictures last week were taken by Wikipedians, in contrast to previous weeks, where many of the pictures were from government sources. Take a look: