Battlestar Wiki talk:Featured articles

Added image to talk page so that it doesnt show in the Unused images page. --Mercifull 05:59, 4 April 2006 (CDT)

What?--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 15:38, 4 April 2006 (CDT)

Mercifull is acutely aware that images that are on the unused images report quickly end up on "the island" (or even disappear). That image was uploaded for potential use as the "logo" in a "Featured Article" template. However, it seems a bit small for that purpose. It probably belongs on the island, or maybe even deleted/reuploaded/reworked. --Steelviper 15:43, 4 April 2006 (CDT)

Okay. One day I really want our front page to look like Memory Alpha's front page. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 15:56, 4 April 2006 (CDT)

I think v1.6 of mediawiki will allow some of the Portal-like features they have on their main page with out all the ugly html. Although, honestly, if we could get it to look like memory-alpha WITH ugly hacks and html (even without v1.6) I'd be up for it. --Steelviper 16:07, 4 April 2006 (CDT)

I don't understand computers at all. Just scifi shows. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 16:09, 4 April 2006 (CDT)

Featured Candidate Requirements

I swiped most of the text from the "quality articles" project, and added a few other requirements as a potential springboard for what a featured article might need. Feel free to hack and slash at it, or discuss it on this talk page. There wasn't much activity on this, so I hoped this would help get the ball rolling. --Steelviper 15:23, 2 May 2006 (CDT)

This isn't really important, but why are featured articles and pictures supposed to be picked by the 7th of each month? Wouldn't it be simpler just to make them due on the 1st of every month? Confusion. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 09:00, 6 June 2006 (CDT)

Already passed. 7th is one week. Gives us time to decide 6-days to pick and debate. Plus, the 1st comes at werid times. Usually the 7th will allow the same ammount of time for each article on the front page. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 09:05, 6 June 2006 (CDT)

Oh okay. Weird times?--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 09:13, 6 June 2006 (CDT)

So do people want to debate this or do we all like it as is? --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 19:03, 11 June 2006 (CDT)

Silly Pages

They are funny, but should they really be considered for FA status? The best of the best? This next time is a pass, but for afterwards. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 21:06, 8 January 2007 (CST)

Well, the way I see it, the silly pages, while not serious and excellent in the way the other articles are, are still great in their way. In my mind, the point of nominating an article for FA status is because you think it's a great article and you think it should get attention because of how good it is. Also, I think the silly pages in general need more attention, because they are sorely underappreciated. --BklynBruzer 21:13, 8 January 2007 (CST)

I don't see the harm in having one as an FA every once in awhile (a great while), if the article itself is worthy. JubalHarshaw 07:21, 9 January 2007 (CST)

I don't think that anybody is questioning their quality. If anything, silly pages are held to a higher standard of quality than normal articles, as only the really good ones are kept. There are no Greenback's of silly pages. They're well conceived, well executed, or they're toast. However, that being said, I think one of the reasons some of the contributors are leery of having them featured is because they don't really represent the main mission of the wiki. If some Ferrari engineers put together some awesome go-karts or bumper cars just to have some fun and blow off some steam, they might go the whole nine yards. Put the prancing horse logo on it, all kinds of detail work, etc. And it'd be a blast. However, you wouldn't see those on a showroom floor. Because the company would want to be sure that when you see Ferrari, you think of incredibly powerful, performance racing machines. Not go-karts or bumper cars. Likewise there are contributors that want people to see the wiki as a source for incredibly detailed, well cited information regarding the Battlestar Galactica sagas. Which is not to say that the silly pages in any way take away from that, or that some of them aren't incredibly detailed and well cited. Just that they represent the (less than) 1% of the articles, rather than the 99% that everyone is contributing to. I'd support a silly page that was 100% grounded in canon citations, but I think at that point it'd be hard to make it silly. --Steelviper 08:24, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Hmm... You make a damned good point. --BklynBruzer 13:59, 9 January 2007 (CST)

I've just thought of a silly page that refers to canon and is still quite silly - The Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game --BklynBruzer 10:04, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Touche! While not everything is necessarily cited, it's definitely grounded completely in canon. (If it wasn't, there wouldn't be anything to drink about.) --Steelviper 10:56, 10 January 2007 (CST)

I can't argue with any of the above, you're right. I expected other articles besides Silly ones to be nominated, as they had been in previous months. The month is still young, I suppose. When I'm rolling the dice, I'll look for some. JubalHarshaw 08:31, 9 January 2007 (CST)

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Archive - [[{{{previous}}}]]

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Template:FAT (which is referred on the BW:FA page) doesn't seem to exist. Is there another template that acts like it that we have already or what? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 14:51, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

I just noticed the same. What's up with that? --Serenity 17:17, 12 August 2007 (CDT)

I don't know. I'll put it on my to-do list, unless Shane or Catrope gets to it before I do. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 17:17, 12 August 2007 (CDT)

New Featured Article

Shouldn't there have been a new FA a while ago? The current article has been featured for two months now, going on its third. -- Veepz 10:41, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, we had a command frakup there. Feel free to vote or make new suggestions here. We already have something going, but it isn't finalized. --Serenity 11:07, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

FA revamp discussion

Once of the many recurring comments from the survey has to do with the lack of updates to the front page. Basically, people would like to see the featured articles and featured pictures updated on a consistent basis.

Now, to make this easier on us, I suggest that we vote to elect two or three articles for Featured Article status every two or three months. This would allow us to build a list of elected Featured Articles already, so we don't get any featured articles (or pictures) that last more than a month.

Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 12:13, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Sounds feasible. One the one hand, I think that there aren't that many really outstanding articles. However, I certainly noticed a great disinterest in even voting for a featured article or featured picture lately, to the point where we hardly got any votes, if any at all. -- Serenity 12:34, 22 February 2008 (CST)

I've noted that as well. That may change when S4 hits the airwaves, since things pick up during the first-run airings. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 12:43, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Kinda like how wikipedia does it? Where a whole bunch get voted on and then that "guy" tells everyone if it's going to be a FA? Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 13:17, 22 February 2008 (CST)

What I was thinking was this: every three months, we vote on various articles for "featured article" status. The top three with the most votes get to be FAs, but are spread out so that each is featured for only one month. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 13:25, 22 February 2008 (CST)

I typed up some changes on the main page. If everyone wants to comment, go ahead (and edit). However, in my version the FA choosing would now strictly follow the FA criteria. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 14:34, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Shane's draft text sounds good. We can't have everything defined democratically, so allowing us to pick amongst ourselves or from a long list of articles put up for nomination and later posted by vote score sounds fine to me. --Spencerian 14:36, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Clearly, Shane's plan isn't working all that well. So, I'm thinking of the following: A small group of people nominate 12 or more articles. We go through those, pick which ones are FA worthy. Then we create a list of 12 per year, and we assign each article to a particular month. When that month comes along, we simply swap it out. Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 15:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. The only issue then would just be remembering to swap out it out each month. Maybe if we could have a system generated email or other notification to remind us. A lot of time I just flat forget that it's the beginning of the month. --Steelviper 17:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't be that difficult, using the {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} magic word in the template call, the page would automatically update. We'd just need to write all the articles the page would call before hand. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 17:47, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Ack...this is what I get for missing too many staff meetings. I've created the SDS page as the FA, but my wiki skillz fail me. It needs to be added to the main page to complete. I think I've cleaned up much of the archive stuff... --Spencerian 00:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem. :) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 00:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Woo, after messing up first, I remembered it. It's just one step too much. Why create a separate article and then link to that from a template? The article could really just be copied to "Main Page/Featured Article" directly. Anyways, it works now :) -- Serenity 11:41, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, including the article contents using the brackets is called "transclusion" in that case. It buys you easy archive displaying (see the edit I made to update the 2008 archive). That said, it is really complicated, easy to screw up (or forget a step), and not user-friendly. We need to either automate that process, or simplify it. --Steelviper 19:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Case Orange

While I like the plan outlined on the page, where a different Chief is in charge of the FA process each month, it looks great on paper and hasn't really been working in reality. For instance, the Fall of the Twelve Colonies was FA for, oh, most of 2008. I pretty much declared a Case Orange at the beginning of this month and took the matter into my own hands. We've had very little contributor input (Chiefs or otherwise) in this process of late, or in the quality article process, and I'm wracking my brains on how to rectify that. Anyway, I'm going to keep suggesting FA and QA candidates, hopefully others will get involved, if not I'll just take unilateral action and hopefully I won't get executed by firing squad for it later. :) JubalHarshaw 18:25, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't shoot ya; you've all I've got, soldier! :) Seriously, I think that perhaps we can take advantage of the polling feature of the forums to let its' contributors help decide an FA from selections we have selected. That way we don't beat ourselves up for non-original thinking, maybe. We've also had far fewer admins around on average to make many of the selection tools work. I might remedy that for one user ad hoc but for now, I'm cool with unilateral stuff, letting others complain (and put the work in to change a choice) if they don't like a selection. How's that? --Spencerian 22:09, 26 March 2009 (UTC)