Forum:Major changes for FA and GA review boards

A very good issue has been brought to my attention tonight, and that relates to Featured articles. Right now, we’ve lost a lot. I definitely wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing in one respect because those that are no longer Featured articles were not up to current standards. In the other respect, though, there’s really not enough new Featured articles coming in to continue the upcoming articles list. Right now, we have roughly a month’s worth of Featured articles left. I don’t even want to imagine what would happen if we ran out. Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be not having anymore and not knowing what to do in that situation? I’d rather not imagine that.

A few suggestions have been given to me, and I’ve mulled them over. One of them was to lower the Featured article requirements. I completely disagree with that idea, because even though they’re difficult they are nowhere near impossible and they prevent nonsense and Mary Sue articles, among other things, from become Featured articles in their current form. Besides, it’s evident that toned down requirements weren’t working, which is why we all voted to approve these current standards to begin with.

So you may be asking right now, what is Brandon thinking about this? What is his opinion on what we should do? Well, my opinion, and the opinion of certain others, is that there are not enough Decreton Lords to continue with Featured article nominations. Right now, there are currently five Decreton Lords. As if that wasn’t a low and pathetic enough number to begin with, there’s not really five active members. Solus is off at college now, and that’s completely understandable as she’s getting acclimated and it takes a few weeks to get into a new routine before you have time for things like this. No one has any idea what Jasca is up to, so that really only leaves Ataru, MPK and me. That’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough.

Although they have many more Featured article nominations, look at Wookieepedia. They have thirty Inquisitors. Yes, that’s right: thirty Inquisitors. That means there is the potential for thirty people to be reviewing one article. I find that to be an entirely reasonable and perhaps overly reasonable number because it really cuts down on the pressure that the members feel. The more of you there are on a team, the less there is on everyone’s shoulders. Although we obviously won’t be getting thirty Decreton Lords anytime soon, we can still increase our number.

From here on out in this proposal, I’m going to refer to Decreton Lords as the “Featured article review board” and the High Priests as the “Good article review board”. This is for a very specific purpose which you will see shortly. I have two proposals that I would like to see you all vote for. Please do so and discuss the options as great length if need be.

Remember, the Voting policy applies here: you must have one hundred (100) mainspace (article) edits to vote in policy proposals. You must sign your posts, you must be logged into an account, and so forth. This proposal will last for two weeks, until September 25th, unless it needs to be shortened or lengthened in which case it will be. Anyway, please read over the two proposals and then discuss. As a note, if you support one proposal, you may also oppose the other. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 06:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Current standings

 * Proposal One (1)
 * Proposal Two (0)

Proposal One
The Featured article review board and the Good article review board should be merged into one new review board that encompasses both Good article and Featured article reviews. This new board would serve in the same capacity as the current two, only it would be responsible for managing both Good articles and Featured articles rather than having two boards for each one. The members, according to the current rosters of both boards, would be as follows:


 * Atarumaster88
 * Brandon Rhea
 * Darth tom
 * Drewton
 * Gnosis is knowledge
 * Jasca Ducato
 * MPK
 * Solus
 * Xepeyon

That would give us nine members for this review board and, based on the current High Priest election, it’s likely that we’ll be adding a tenth or, if someone else is nominated, possibly even an eleventh. It should be noted that while the members of this group will still be the only ones to vote on Featured article nominations, all members will still be able to vote on Good article nominations. That aspect would not change. The only real difference is the board that helps to oversee them.

Once this new group is established, they will decide on a name. It can be the Decreton Lords, the High Priests or even Barney and Friends. It does not particularly matter. It’s whatever they feel works best for the new group. After three (3) months of activity, this group will hold a discussion to see where they are at in improving the amount of Featured articles we have and how the review process is working for both Good articles and Featured articles.

If the group believes that it can split into two once again and the Wiki can afford to have separate Good article and Featured article review boards, the group will compile their reasons and propose it to the membership of the Wiki as a new proposal. Because of the potential for this, the High Priest and Decreton Lord pages would remain intact, just in case it was decided that those two separate boards would be brought back.

Support

 * 1) I believe that this is the better of my two proposals. It’s important to maintain oversight over Good articles, because I think many of us can agree that there are some Good articles that are not up to Good article quality. This requires a larger group of members to carry out an adequate review of Good articles (ones that are not Featured articles at the time of the review). Not only that, but there is still a tendency for many members to support Good article nominations if it just appears to “look good”. With a review board, a respectable review of each article can be carried out in a timely and efficient manner. Therefore, I definitely believe that this is the way we should be going at this point. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 06:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposal Two
The Featured article review board and the Good article review board should be merged into one new review board. However, unlike Proposal One, this will only be a Featured article review board. With this proposal, a Good article review board would no longer exist and it would be up to Good article voters to decide as regular members rather than as regular members alongside members of a review board.

This new Featured article review board would look exactly the same as the current one, only with an obvious increase in number of members. The members, according to the current rosters of both boards, would be as follows:


 * Atarumaster88
 * Brandon Rhea
 * Darth tom
 * Drewton
 * Gnosis is knowledge
 * Jasca Ducato
 * MPK
 * Solus
 * Xepeyon

That would give us nine members for this review board and, based on the current High Priest election, it’s likely that we’ll be adding a tenth or, if someone else is nominated, possibly even an eleventh, as that will likely have results before this new system is adopted (assuming Proposal Two beats Proposal One). It should be noted that the members of this group will still be the only ones to vote on Featured article nominations.

Once this new group is established, they will decide on a name. It can be the Decreton Lords, the High Priests or even Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. It does not particularly matter. It’s whatever they feel works best for the new group. After three (3) months of activity, this group will hold a discussion to see where they are at in improving the amount of Featured articles we have and how the review process is working for both Good articles and Featured articles.

If the group believes that it can split into two once again and the Wiki can afford to have separate Good article and Featured article review boards, the group will compile their reasons and propose it to the membership of the Wiki as a new proposal. Because of the potential for this, the High Priest and Decreton Lord pages would remain intact, just in case it was decided that those two separate boards would be brought back.

General discussion
Please use this area for general discussion regarding the two proposals found above. - Brandon Rhea (talk) (contribs) 06:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)