Wikipedia talk:Canada collaboration/History

So how's it going?

I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place; maybe it's being discussed elsewhere. But after a year and a bit, how's the project going? I noticed that none of the articles worked on have achieved one of the stated goals (to become FAs), and in fact only one was nominated. I know it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to get ALL object votes (even the crappy pop songs nominated get a few yeses, lol), but I think it's weird that nothing was done about it.

I don't want to seem like an armchair quarterback here, and my apologies if I'm saying something that's already been said or that offends, but I have a few observations/pieces of advice:

1. The goals of this project should be clarified. Is the goal to achieve FA status? And if so, who will be responsible for ensuring the article: a) meets basic FA criteria, b) is nominated, c) receives attention to correct deficiencies per comments during nomination, d) is re-visited in the event of failure, etc... Or is the goal just to improve the article? I looked on the discussion pages of ALL the previous nomination winners, and I don't think ANY of them had even a to-do list.
2. IMO firstly - whether or not the goal is FA status - when an article is voted CCOTM or whatever, a message should be posted with a 'to-do' list. This is particularly important if - in fact - one of the goals of the project remains to elevate articles to FA status. Do the editors even know what is typically required for a FA? I noticed (not a criticism) that the article on Simon Fraser, AFTER collaboration, still doesn't have a reference section. There could actually be TWO to-do lists; one standard one for featured article candidates (for people to use as a guide) and a specific one written by someone who has evaluated the article (perhaps the nominator). Or maybe just a link to the FA criteria.
3. The question is, who should do this? Well I think that the article nominator should be responsible for coordinating the improvement effort; s/he should be willing to at the very least: a) do a to-do list for improvement, keep track of it, strike off items that are completed, etc; b) contact all the nomination voters and ask them to at least give it a read-through and provide comments; c) decide at the end of the improvement period whether the goals were met, what the next step should be, etc.
4. And what about FA status? The same month the nomination for Geography of Canada failed, Get Back by The Beatles succeeded, along with 30 odd other articles (several of them on Canada). I'm not trying to be harsh here, sorry if I am brusque. But if you look at other FA nominations, the nominators and other supporters frequently: respond to criticisms, ask for clarification, offer to fix things, and check back to find out if the changes satisfied the commenter. None of that happened with the GoC page. Furthermore, to repeat, the article got NO support votes. It also didn't get A SINGLE VOTE from anyone who had NOMINATED THE ARTICLE AS A COLLABORATION. I'm in now way an expert on FAs, but I've been reading a *lot* of failed and succeeded nomination pages and article talk pages, and it's amazing how much commitment it takes to elevate an article to FA. Even drippy pop topics like Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, Cool (song), La La (song), and We Belong Together have committed project managers, to-do lists that are frequently referred to, added to and crossed off, and a lot of them get FA status.
5. Personally, I don't think anyone should nominate an article unless they are willing to mentor it through the improvement process (even notwithstanding FA elevation). I also think that anyone who *votes* for the articles that make CCOTM should be at least willing to give the article they voted for a critical and thorough read-through to establish weaknesses, and make a list thereof in the talk page. I also think that, re: FA status, the CCOTM project manager should be responsible for helping the article mentor nominate the article for FA status, and that *all* the people who voted for the article to be made a CCOTM should at least *vote* in the FA nomination (whether for or against). But there's no point in nominating an article for FA status if there isn't at least one person who's willing to make the changes necessary to improve the article/satisfy objectors; maybe that was the problem with GoC. Would it be Wiki-Kosher to have a list somewhere in the Canada Portal or the Canada Collaboration listing Canadian (or just CCOTM) articles nominated for FA status?
6. Another direction to go might be to flag the CCOTM articles for Peer Review after the collaboration period is done. PR is now an encouraged/accepted step in advance of FA candidacy, intended to intercept inferior articles and improve them before they get to the FA nomination stage.

I REALLY hope no-one takes this to be criticism, I really don't mean it as such; I just think this is a great idea but it doesn't seem to have borne much fruit after almost 18 months, and I hope some of my suggestions might help.--Anchoress 04:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)