Wikipedia talk:Featured and good topic criteria/Archive 3

Vote on permanently audited articles of limited subject matter
Please see here - rst20xx (talk) 20:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

FT retention periods and GA backlogs
Right now, for the Guitar Hero topic, the next major deadline for retention is getting Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades to GA or better by 2-16. I've placed the article up for GAN almost a month ago, but there is a serious backlog at WP:GAN. I know there's people that I could go prod that have not worked on the article and ask for them to review the article to pass it as GA but ethically I feel that's the wrong approach and rather wait for it to be voluntarily passed. Now, I've still a month to go so I'm not so worried now about it yet, but let's take the hypothetical case that 30 days from now, with a week before the required date, the article is still in the GA queue. In this case, I've made the good faith effort to get the article to a quality needed by the FTC requirements (specifically getting the article up to what I believe is GA quality), but because of another process on Wikipedia being backlogged, it may be the case that I cannot get the GA passing in time.

I realize that under the current system with FTs and GTs that it would suggest the topic get demoted to a GT, but given that I'm pretty confident that once the review is started, passing the GA (and thus securing the FT requirements) would be a cinch; the effort and editing to demote and then re-promote the topic seems like a lot of work for something along this line. And this is not like "Ooops, one week before due date and I need to get it to GA, let me fix it now...", as noted I felt I got this to the right level a month ago. I know I could go direct to FA, but I don't feel I'm confident that FA is guaranteed for this article just yet.

This may be a unique circumstance, as few other topics are moving targets, but has there been consideration of a case like this before? --M ASEM 16:19, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, if the article doesn't get GA, then technically the whole topic should be removed, not even become a good topic. Because it won't meet the good topic criteria either! Having said that, really, don't worry about it, because in order for this to happen, the topic would be nominated as a topic removal candidate and then voted on, and considering the circumstances, I don't think anyone would support removal until Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades has finished its run through GAN.
 * Only once before a topic has failed to meet its moving targets - the Devil May Cry topic didn't get DMC4 to GA in time and resultantly got demoted. But the situation there was completely different, because not much effort had been made to meet the target and the article was never even nominated before the FTRC came along. As I said, I feel that here, no-one would support removal until the GAN is over. So don't worry - rst20xx (talk) 16:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info, that's good to know (FWIW, someone just did run through and promote it to GA, so all is well (save for when more on GH:Metallica when it comes out), which I appreciate though I do hope I wasn't sounding like I was pleading for that type of help here). --M ASEM  17:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, well that's okay then! Keep us posted if any release dates come out, or any new articles are made... rst20xx (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Poll: Proposal to add featured media to FTs
I believe that a limited number of well selected featured pictures and sounds may be added to FTs. I believe they should be added BUT treated as audited articles not counting at all towards the # or % requirement.
 * Supporting
 * Nergaal (talk) 19:54, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Given that they are to be treated as audited articles not counting towards the # or % requirement (i.e. effectively we're just mentioning the fact that they exist in the topic box), I weakly support this - rst20xx (talk) 22:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. As long as it doesn't count towards the article count and is not already in the main article, i think a featured sound or image would be a great addition for readers.YobMod 08:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Frankly, Featured Topics are more for editors than for readers. Most readers will never be aware that a topic exists as there is no icon on the article page to indicate this. Gary King  ( talk ) 15:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Am i the only one who browses via featured content rather than random page? As a reader, i always click on new featured topics, even the ones i would not expect to be interested in at all (I now know way more than i wanted to about military compaign and hurricanes on other continents!) :-).YobMod 08:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Opposing
 * Per Wikipedia_talk:Featured_topic_questions, this was discussed earlier. Gary King  ( talk ) 21:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No, because it leads to the issue of cherry picking. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose. As Pagrashtak (neutral) says any media will surely be in one of the article, so I don't really see the point. Rambo's Revenge (talk)  14:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Neutral and comments
 * Since the picture or sound would (surely) already be present in one of the articles, I question if it's necessary to have a stand-alone link in the topic.  Pagra shtak  20:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Please explain? Durova Charge! 21:55, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The statement at the top is incorrect. Under the current criteria, audited articles DO count towards the % requirement. I proposed changing that at the bottom of this discussion, but nobody seemed to like that idea. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah good point. I got confused :S Well I stand by the current audited criteria, and I stand by what I've said above (though note strikeout for clarification) - rst20xx (talk) 01:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we need more details about this, such as what is the actual wording that would be added to the criteria and where would it be added? Are there going to be limits on the number of non-text media? How will these non-text media be displayed in the topic box? If the non-text media is already in one of the articles in the topic can it still stand by itself? Will the non-text media all be grouped into 1 link in the topic box that takes you to a separate page to see or hear them? Do any sort of cherry picking, scope, or completeness rules apply? I think this proposal is more complex then it appears on the surface. A separate criteria subpage may need to be created for non-text media like that for overview topics.Rreagan007 (talk) 15:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Peer review = GA
I understand including audited articles, but don't think they should be counted as equivalent to GA. The whole point of auditing is that they cannot become GA. Hence should not topics containing audited articles only be eligible for GT status? At the moment a topic with 2 featured lists and 2 audited articles would be a FT, yes? That doesn't seem right.YobMod 08:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually it wouldn't as the audited articles do not count towards the item number so that example would fall short of 3 items. Audited articles do count towards the percentage featured criteria though, so that prevents a FT of 1 FL, 2 GA and 3 audited. <b style="color:#E32636;">Rambo's Revenge</b> <b style="color:#FFA500;">(talk)</b>  08:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, so in fact audited articles count for less than GA. (Though 1 FL and 2 GA wouldn't be an FT either, because an FT needs two featured articles minimum! Think you would want say 2 FL, 4 GA and an audited?)
 * Look, articles can only become audited if they are either:
 * Lists which are too short for FL
 * Inherently unstable
 * In both cases, there is no way the article can become a GA/FL at this time. Hence it would be very unfair to say that a topic cannot become featured because some of the articles are audited. Besides, in case 2, the articles will have to become FL/GA before too long anyway, and in case 1, well, after 3 years of featured topics, case 1 has only occurred 4 times, and these are in topics with 15, 25*2 and 10 articles respectively. Look at Featured topics/Canadian election timelines - are you honestly saying that that topic doesn't deserve to be featured, because Nunavut has only held 3 elections? rst20xx (talk) 13:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

New Featured List criteria having a knock-on impact here (proposed rule change at the bottom)
Following a lengthy discussion at WP:FL?, new, stricter Featured List criteria are due to be rolled out in the next few days.

In terms of immediate impact here, this may lead to some lists being defeatured, with Scorpion0422 saying that the Canadian Universities, Canadian elections and Seasons of the Office topics are under threat. One of the provisions is against needless content forking, and Canadian Universities looks like it might have all its lists merged into one (!) under that provision. Scorpion reckons that the Seasons of the Office topic might meet the same fate, or at least have its lists defeatured for this reason, though I'm less convinced here - we'll have to wait and see. As for Canadian elections, Scorpion says that the lists are not content forks, but they are also not up to current standards anyway, so again this is something to keep an eye on.

Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up here is because of the more long-term impact for featured topics. Before, there was an unwritten rule that lists with less than 10 items could not become featured lists, and we at WP:FT dealt with this by saying in criterion 3.c) that lists that were too short to be featured, but that would eventually grow to be long enough, may be included in topics as audited items. And then, when the list got long enough, it had 3 months to become featured or else the topic gets demoted.

The new WP:FL? will make it harder for a list to become featured, so the knock-on impact is that we will see more lists having "limited subject matter" and qualifying to be audited. This is obviously bad, as I think there's general agreement that the "limited subject matter" clause should only be applied in exceptional circumstances (and indeed, so far, it's only been applied 4 times), and anything that means it can be applied more readily should be addressed.

But I think we can address it. Let's look at the reason for the rule change over at WP:FL? The reason is, simply put, to stop needless content forking. People have been breaking off list-type bits of articles in order to get them featured, and the new FL rules are aiming at stopping this, and getting people to leave the list bits in the original article.

At the moment, at FT, we have 4 lists that are audited under the "limited subject matter" clause: The observation here is that all 4 come from "lists" FTs, i.e. FTs entirely made up of lists. It is somewhat clear that none of these lists can be merged into the main list in their topics.
 * 1) List of Nunavut general elections
 * 2) Mark Messier Leadership Award
 * 3) Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award
 * 4) List of WWE Divas Champions

On the other hand, a list that is being bandied about as the "first casualty" of the new FL rules is List of awards and nominations received by Bloc Party, which may end up merged with Bloc Party. The list is only 7kb, and the main article 34kb, and merging the list into the main wouldn't leave something unnatural-looking (as would be the case if one list in a lists topic is merged into the main list). And so I think advocating that, as the list doesn't merit separate coverage, then the band's awards and nominations should be covered in the band's article, would be a good thing to do. And so I think we should be able to advocate that. And so what I would like to do then to address this is to possibly add a provision that if a "limited subject matter" list can be merged into the main article, it should be.

Obviously we're then going to then get the opposite problem, with people being lazy and arguing that lists wouldn't be big enough to break out of the main article when in fact they are, it's just that the guy who reviewed the main at WP:GA didn't make sure the list was comprehensive, or worse the list was added after the GA review, and so it's only half-complete, and so it looks too small to break out, when in reality if it was comprehensive it should get its own list... so at WP:FTC it's going to come down to judgement calls sometimes.

But people nominating band topics without making any attempt to cover awards or tours is bad, and if awards and tours don't merit their own separate lists, then they should be covered in a list-y way in the main topic, and we should ensure that these two areas are covered as well as they would be if they did have their own separate lists.

GAN/FAC should start enforcing this too, but often they're just looking at one article and don't see how the whole topic fits together, so I suppose that if they're not doing that, we certainly should be.

So I propose we change "in the case of lists only" in 3.c) to "in the case of lists that cannot be merged with the lead article only" - rst20xx (talk) 21:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Makes sense to me. Rebecca (talk) 01:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * lol err I'm no longer convinced with what I've outlined above because people may use it as an excuse to merge lists into the lead when in reality they merit separate lists. I think I'd now rather leave it and wait and see what comes up, and if needs be ask the FLC guys to check the potential lists off against WP:FL? 3.b) - rst20xx (talk) 16:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think waiting to see how everything shakes out before taking action is a wise idea. We don't need to try to solve a problem now that may or may not exist in the future. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Question on topic bredth
Thanks to Activision (grumble grumble) there's going to be much more to add to the Guitar Hero topic. I've added the three confirmed games that clearly fall into the topic, but there was a fourth game announced along side these which doesn't seem to fall clearly into the topic but could be, specifically DJ Hero, which is more based on a turntable, but all initial reports suggest a lot of similarities to the GH series and possibly include use of the GH guitar controllers.

I'm trying to judge (and it may be too early to call) if this could be in the GH topic, or sufficiently distinct as to not be (It's reasonably linked in the GH navbox template) Not that I'm not watching and expecting to improve the page, but if it is to be part of the topic, we probably need to start working that up in quality. --M ASEM (t) 14:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well I don't think anyone would complain if you include it, but whether you need to include it is very hard to say - rst20xx (talk) 18:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * DJ Hero appears to have a similar connection to GH as Rock Band does; so I would say until it is released and people really start to see similarities, it should not be necessary. Nergaal (talk) 23:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Nomination process too complicated
I just sumbitted my first of what may be several topics and I have noticed that nominating a topic is way too complicated. I recommend streamlining it in the way that the Featured article or list nomination process is. A couple of easy things that could be done.
 * 1) Modify the candidate templates to automatically insert the article name rather than having to type it in when you place the template.
 * 2) Streamlining the process of adding or removing articles to the topics so the entire topic doesn't have to be renominated every time an article is upgraded from Good to featured or is added to the topic.
 * 3) I also have one more thing that I wanted to bring up.  If we have good or featured topics shouldn't we also have just topics.  Even if they are not good or featured status I think they are usefull.--Kumioko (talk) 13:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * #1 can't be done since you have to type in the TOPIC name, not the article name. Hence you can actually just copy and paste the code onto multiple article talk pages instead of having to manually type in anything.
 * #2 Streamline? Articles need to be approved or denied before being added or removed from a topic since we ARE changing a pretty significant part of the topic. Also, topics don't need to be renominated when an article's status is upgraded, only when it drops to B-class or lower.
 * #3 No, we would easily have thousands of potential topics that could be nominated.


 * Gary King ( talk ) 17:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I have to say I agree with Gary King. I would also say that Good and Featured Topics are really more for editors than they are for readers. They give editors an incentive to improve a series of articles. A navigation template is all readers really need. Also, I am sorry you found the process complicated. If you have future questions about the process the best place to ask would be Wikipedia talk:Featured topic questions. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Maximum number of articles a topic can be in
Following this discussion with Mitch, I'd like to explore a potential long-term problem for featured topics. Currently the system is set up to allow articles to appear in up to 4 topics. To allow any more would require a big recode of ArticleHistory (which is doable, but would be horrificly messy and confusing). However I am genuinely not sure whether this is a good idea or not. As Mitch points out, New York State Route 5 crosses 14 counties, so under the format of having one topic for each county, the article would hence appear in 14 topics (!) - obviously something's gone wrong here and this is too many, but yet at the same time I feel there would be no excessive overlap between the topics and that all the topics would be individually viable. So I am unsure how to proceed - should we put some fixed limit on the maximum number of articles a topic can appear in, say 4 or 5? And if so how do we then get round the problem of articles like NY5 being in 14 viable potential topics? Say we fix a limit of 4, and then 4 of its county topics get promoted. What happens when the fifth one is ready? It is no less deserving of recognition than the other four counties - rst20xx (talk) 12:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I, along with others have pondered using regions, but the regions definition are not very good :( - <i style="color:red;">Mitch</i>/<i style="color:black;">HC32</i> 12:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry what are regions? Not being American I don't know the ins and outs of sub-national categorisations. Anyway be that as it may this problem still generalises to other potential topics outside of the road ones - rst20xx (talk) 14:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Regions are the larger type of geographic locations.<i style="color:red;">Mitch</i>/<i style="color:black;">HC32</i> 18:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You mean these? rst20xx (talk) 19:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * "Region" is a very amorphous term. There are no truly set interstate regions in the U.S. The only fixed subdivisions in the U.S. are counties and states. As far as limiting the number of topics one article can be in, I'm not sure about it. It seems logical that there should be some sort of limit, but on the other hand setting an arbitrary limit seems very restrictive. After all we require topics to be comprehensive and we would basically be making comprehensiveness impossible for certain future topics. That just doesn't seem right to me.Rreagan007 (talk) 20:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me of the idea of milking articles to create topics. IF an article is a part of 14 topics, then that article is not truly a part of either of those topics. If only 1/14th of something is within a topic, than that something is not really a part of the original topic. There are two solutions to this: (1) do what YellowMonkey is doing for The Invincibles, that is create detailed articles for the topic (see here); (2) create some notability criteria for promotic topics (while some of the 14 topics should be notable, I bet not all of them do actually have significant notability). Nergaal (talk) 21:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know Nergaal, to use the counties example again, I think they are all as notable as each other, and I also think they are all notable, and I also think that they are so lowly notable that the articles cannot be split a la YellowMonkey's very impressive effort! As it is, some of the articles are US/Interstate highways split down to just county level. Honestly there are no obvious solutions to this problem but it certainly needs addressing so if anyone has any bright ideas!... rst20xx (talk) 23:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why shouldn't notability be a criteria? Does the notability of highways in county X actually make it deserve to be a featured topic? Nergaal (talk) 01:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, what I was trying to convey was that I think such topics are notable. Having said that, if you have some suggestion for some notability criteria for featured topics that can be somewhat objectively applied (we don't need more subjectivity around here!) then I'm all ears - rst20xx (talk) 10:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * See any number of WT:FAC archives to discover why trying to insert notability as a criterion in a featured content process does not work. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:22, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Kingdom Hearts question
Universe of Kingdom Hearts is currently under GA reassessment, and I brought up merging with Kingdom Hearts (series) if we are unable to clean up the article. I was hoping we could get some input from some editors here because it would impact the Kingdom Hearts topic. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC))
 * My opinion on the merge is that I think there is enough material to warrant a separate article on the KH universe - the two articles we're talking about here are 45 KB and 65 KB. Further, all the Final Fantasy games post-VII have an article (two of which are GAs) and the KH universe has appeared in several games. Hence I think that merging would be something of a lazy option, with the article certainly meriting existence.
 * To describe the process though, if it's delisted then you'd have three months to bring it back up to GA or to merge it. If you decide to merge it then you just need to remove it from the topic box (there should probably be a formal procedure for this but this is how it seems to have been done in the past, so that's all that's needed) rst20xx (talk) 17:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Following up on this, Universe of Kingdom Hearts was delisted because of sourcing issues. While merging was brought up at the GAR, the sourcing issue will still be prevalent in the content after merging. Sourcing is an issue in the topic's other articles as well because similar references are being used. As such, I'm going to nominate the topic for removal because the issue does not seem to be solvable—keep the sources to be comprehensive and the reliability is compromised, remove the sources to be reliable and the comprehensiveness is compromised—and it will only be a matter of time before the other articles are delisted from their current status. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC))

Name of page
Should the name of the page be called "Featured topic and good topic criteria"? Snowman (talk) 18:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This was discussed when good topics were first set up, but it was decided that it might damage the featured brand to use a combined name or another name altogether. The shortcoming of this decision is obviously that the page name is confusing in that it does not describe the entirety of the purpose of the page - rst20xx (talk) 00:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)