- Pronouns
- she/her
- MarioWiki
- Mario
The reason I didn't start a proposal on this is that it's a pretty dang radical change and I'd like some suggestions, thoughts, and refinements before I go ahead. I would also like to have some background knowledge if suggestions pertaining to this has been made in the distant past.
Okay then...
I had a conversation with Tsunami about this, after the Mario Kart 8 nomination where Tsunami, BabyLuigi64, and Boo476 complained about fan votes. I've done this in the past, too, but I eventually resorted to the "fan votes are worthless" argument, which works. But I started delving deeper into the problem and now... this... thing I'm proposing.
The Featured Article system itself is going by all right, I guess, but the voting aspect of it, I find it unproductive.
The voting system isn't useful compared to, say, proposals. Votes are little substance; support vote requirements are pure quantity while oppose votes are structured in a way that only one is essential to keeping an article from featured. Any "per all" votes are wholly worthless unlike in proposals, unless you're voting to remove an oppose vote, but it's the voting itself that's the problem. Also, while it's only a minor problem, we have a number of uninformed editors simply logging in and casting a support fanvote, who think 500 supports feature an article, thus bumping the nomination. This is also another problem with the voting; once a valid oppose vote is there, support votes are just fluff. And additional opposing "per all/asshole who made oppose" votes.
A lot of editors have trouble with fans logging in only to vote for their character to be a featured article. We had several proposals about dealing with fan votes. The vast majority of them failed because of the above reasons. Despite this, fan votes continue being a problem, so this lead me to instead reexamine the entire voting-to-FA thing.
I think we should scrap the voting system in favor of a simple editor consensus, with a staff member approving it. Once this has reached, then we can wait one week until the article is then featured. The advantages of an editor consensus is that it encourages discussion and prevents such fan votes. It's essentially an FA nomination page with only comments, with maybe pointers for those opposing or supporting the nomination. It's going to follow the same deadlines, the archiving, the one-week-after-requirements-are-met thing; it's just without the voting and all. The quantity of editors being the consensus might be... maybe 4 or 5. Oh, it also doesn't have to be unanimous, but ultimately, a staff member (who is supposed to have good judgement, with extra editing tools and all) can decide if the consensus has been met.
One possible disadvantage is actually getting editors to be involved in the discussion, although it's already a prevalent problem in the current voting system anyway. But it's still my biggest fear, that the new system may end up having less articles featured because it requires a bit more effort. Maybe. Although those that already comment and vote frequently in the Featured Articles system probably wouldn't mind the change. I hope.
So yeah, again, it's a pretty radical change, but I'd like to see if anyone has comments and all.
Okay then...
I had a conversation with Tsunami about this, after the Mario Kart 8 nomination where Tsunami, BabyLuigi64, and Boo476 complained about fan votes. I've done this in the past, too, but I eventually resorted to the "fan votes are worthless" argument, which works. But I started delving deeper into the problem and now... this... thing I'm proposing.
The Featured Article system itself is going by all right, I guess, but the voting aspect of it, I find it unproductive.
The voting system isn't useful compared to, say, proposals. Votes are little substance; support vote requirements are pure quantity while oppose votes are structured in a way that only one is essential to keeping an article from featured. Any "per all" votes are wholly worthless unlike in proposals, unless you're voting to remove an oppose vote, but it's the voting itself that's the problem. Also, while it's only a minor problem, we have a number of uninformed editors simply logging in and casting a support fanvote, who think 500 supports feature an article, thus bumping the nomination. This is also another problem with the voting; once a valid oppose vote is there, support votes are just fluff. And additional opposing "per all/asshole who made oppose" votes.
A lot of editors have trouble with fans logging in only to vote for their character to be a featured article. We had several proposals about dealing with fan votes. The vast majority of them failed because of the above reasons. Despite this, fan votes continue being a problem, so this lead me to instead reexamine the entire voting-to-FA thing.
I think we should scrap the voting system in favor of a simple editor consensus, with a staff member approving it. Once this has reached, then we can wait one week until the article is then featured. The advantages of an editor consensus is that it encourages discussion and prevents such fan votes. It's essentially an FA nomination page with only comments, with maybe pointers for those opposing or supporting the nomination. It's going to follow the same deadlines, the archiving, the one-week-after-requirements-are-met thing; it's just without the voting and all. The quantity of editors being the consensus might be... maybe 4 or 5. Oh, it also doesn't have to be unanimous, but ultimately, a staff member (who is supposed to have good judgement, with extra editing tools and all) can decide if the consensus has been met.
One possible disadvantage is actually getting editors to be involved in the discussion, although it's already a prevalent problem in the current voting system anyway. But it's still my biggest fear, that the new system may end up having less articles featured because it requires a bit more effort. Maybe. Although those that already comment and vote frequently in the Featured Articles system probably wouldn't mind the change. I hope.
So yeah, again, it's a pretty radical change, but I'd like to see if anyone has comments and all.