Talk: Featured article policies

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Featured article policies page. It is not for general discussion; for that, go to Memory Alpha's Discussions or Discord. Click here to start a new discussion on this talk page.

"Fixing" the reconfirmation process[]

It's been pointed out more than once that the reconfirmation process isn't working the way it was intended to, which is true, so I have many, many suggestions rolled into more or less a complete rewrite of the policy that I think will solve the perceived problems.

The reconfirmation policy text would be replaced by this:

Featured articles can be brought up for reconfirmation from time to time to ensure that they are still an example of Memory Alpha's best work. It is expected that these articles will have undergone revisions over time to keep them up to date, and it's important to make sure that these revisions have maintained the quality expected of a featured article.

Any featured article more than six months old can be listed on the reconfirmation of featured articles page. If you feel the current revision of a feature article is just as good, or better, than the featured revision, it should be added to the "uphold" section on the discussion page. If you feel that an article currently listed as a featured article needs to be removed from the feature article list, for example because it has been significantly changed for the worst, it should be listed on the discussion page in the "remove" section. Either way, be sure to state the reason(s) why you think the article should be reconfirmed; then add the {{far}} template to the top of the article in question while leaving an edit summary informing other members that it was listed for reconfirmation.

Reconfirmation discussions

Any registered user that has been in existence for at least two weeks and with at least twenty significant contributions can participate in reconfirmation discussions.
An archivist may start more than one reconfirmation, provided that the overall number of concurrent reconfirmations doesn't exceed five.
Starting a reconfirmation discussion is considered a vote in support for the suggested course of action.
At least one additional vote is required.
Be sure that you are familiar with the entire article before you form an opinion and vote.
If you approve of the suggested action, write '''Support''' followed by your reasons.
If you have any objections, write '''Oppose''' followed by your reasons. Any objections should be directly related to one or more of the featured article criteria. Objections purely based on personal preference are considered invalid.
If you wish to request more time to make minor changes or read the article, write '''Hold''' followed by your reasons and how long you think you would need. Generally, holds should only be for a few days at most.
If you want to comment without supporting or opposing, you may do so.
To withdraw a vote, strike it out (with <s>...</s>) rather than removing it.
As always, sign your comments (~~~~). This is important to keep track of voting.

Frivolous reconfirmation discussions, for example ones that have nothing to do with the featured article criteria, may be removed by administrators without notice.

This policy change would coincide with a number of other changes to related pages and templates:

Faupdate and Farc would be merged together to form the {{Far}} template, as there is no reason we need two different templates to point to the same page. Fac would be renamed {{Fan}}, so the templates would be Featured Article Reconfirmation/Nomination.
The Reconfirmation of featured articles page would be changed to only have two sections, one for upholding the consensus that the article should be featured, and one for removing the article from the FA list.
The old featured articles category would only be on FAs that are more than five years old, since MA standards have been pretty stable for years, and I assume the category was created originally to list articles that have changed significantly. See Worf (Colonel) and Cutler for articles that are "old" but essentially unchanged.
The {{featured}} template would have a link to the reconfirmation page if the article is in the old FA category, and text suggesting it should be listed.

These suggestions remove the "automatic" parts of the system, mainly the removal of old FAs from the list and the "need" to reconfirm FAs every two years. I don't really see this as a problem since the consensus to remove articles automatically required the backlog to be dealt with before that would kick in, and I think we can all agree that is unlikely to happen. How reconfirmations are resolved using these changes would have to be decided upon here though, since the reconfirmations wouldn't be "compulsory" anymore. The system I think we should use is this:

If support to uphold the article during the reconfirmation is unanimous, the current revision of the article becomes the featured revision after fourteen days. This should be done by updating the featured revision ID and date in the {{featured}} template at the bottom of the article.
If the majority of votes cast are for removal after fourteen days, the article will be removed from the featured article list.
Reconfirmations with five or more unanimous votes, either to uphold or remove the article, can be resolved after seven days, though the fifth support vote must have been cast at least 24 hours before the reconfirmation is resolved.
Reconfirmations that do not have: unanimous support to uphold the article, a majority to remove it from the feature article list, or two votes after fourteen days of inactivity are considered deadlocked, and the original revision will remain the featured one.

Any objections to the main page blurb are independent of the article, though a reconfirmation to uphold a featured article can not end until 24 hours after all objections to the blurb are resolved. When a reconfirmation discussion is resolved, it should be placed with the nomination discussion on the article's talk page, and a link should be placed in the archive.

I think this mainly keeps the status quo for changing the featured revision while more or less reverting to the old system for removals, since the only real change to removing an article was the compulsory nature of the reconfirmation process. I think this is at least the framework for a workable solution, so I'm open to wording changes and/or better ideas. - Archduk 3 20:48, February 5, 2014 (UTC)

I'll need some time to digest it but just from skimming it this seems like a good change. 31dot (talk) 20:51, February 5, 2014 (UTC)

This will "fix" the process by, in practice, completely inactivating it. By restricting article removals to those cases where an article "has been significantly changed for the worst" (yes, it says "for example", but what other reasons will not immediately be shot down if that is the one reason given as example?), this rule change would basically ensure that no FA removals will take place in the future. Even in those cases where an article "has been changed for the worst", wouldn't it be the most logical solution to revert a change that everyone agrees made the article worse (and then not remove FA status) - instead of keeping the bad article changes?

I still think a better way would be to only call those articles "Featured Article" that are actually featured somewhere (novel idea, I know!), or have been featured during, say, the last year. That way, we would have a fixed number of FAs (52, one per week) at any time, without the hassle of having either too many or too few. -- Cid Highwind (talk) 22:07, February 5, 2014 (UTC)

The only FAs not featured somewhere, excepting their pages in the database as a whole, the featured articles list, and the category, are the old ones we never got around to reconfirming, and I was going to deal with that after this, but since we're on the subject, there is no reason we can't approve blurbs independent of the article. They can simply be approved en masse so when we say "featured", we mean both definitions.

As for "articles of the week", we would need 416 actually, one for each week per portal. Also, all the reasons that system was replaced remain valid on top of the proven fact that people won't update them anymore than the FAs are currently, and limiting the number will only lead to pointless comparison arguments when the cap is reached, whatever it is, if it requires removing the status itself. As for limiting ourselves to FAs in just the last year, we have exactly two, both of which we're just one article for more than half the year. In fact, the last year we had 52 or more feature articles pass was 2005, when approving FAs was much easier than it is now.

As for the old system being ineffective in removing FAs, a quick look at the archive proves that removal discussions succeeded far more than they failed. I'm sure there was a reason the 39 articles removed before the system changed, and the 12 since then, weren't simply reverted, so I don't think that argument holds water. We both know that if a feature article is no longer considered to be well-written, comprehensive, and accurate by something as unwiki-like as a simple majority, then it can and should be removed, even if it wasn't changed in any way since being featured. - Archduk 3 23:31, February 5, 2014 (UTC)

That argument swings both ways, though. Why the need to "fix" a process concerning keeping FAs if, apparently, people are no longer interested in trying to make a new article an FA in the first place? If there have been just two of those in a whole year, then perhaps we should first ask whether we still need that whole process at all - and if we do need it for some reason, how we can make that process become more active again. Given that, currently, FAs are mostly featured by being on a list of articles that are considered featured (still sounds a little circular to me) and only eventually get displayed on one or another portal page, there might be a different process to "fix" right there.

In any case, a different way of solving this would be to just get rid of the idea of a "backlog" that needs to be handled completely, once, before an automatic "de-featuring" of articles happens. If I remember correctly, this "backlog" idea was brought up late in the initial discussion about this "removal process" - and apparently, it now only serves to stall the process instead of being helpful in any way. -- Cid Highwind (talk) 09:51, February 6, 2014 (UTC)

It's the backlog that I've found to be the most problematic and (as Cid said) unhelpful. If nothing else here I agree that whole concept should be removed or somehow addressed. 31dot (talk) 10:22, February 6, 2014 (UTC)

I agree to changing the policy surrounding FA reconfirmations to something like what 31dot is suggesting. I don't see why there needs to be a backlog in the first place. Why can't we just have it so when someone nominates an article and it is successful, it becomes an FA, and then it only becomes eligible for reconfirmation once a significant number of edits have been made to it, changing it from what it was when nominated? Note that the thought behind putting an article up for reconfirmation is to support it's continued status as an FA. If a person thought it was no longer worthy of FA status then it would be put up for removal in the normal manner. To give an example, I recently put a lot of work into the Martok article as I knew there was a ton of information not included in it. However, when I began working on it, it was an FA. When I finished working on it, it was considerably different to the version nominated. Realizing this, I put it up for reconfirmation to solidify the new edits as being worthy of FA status. If I thought the article wasn't worthy, I simply could have put it up for removal. In my opinion, this is all the reconfirmation process needs to be. We don't need a "list" to go through and check every week. Just have it so that any article that has had significant edits can be put up for reconfirmation by any MA user. --| TrekFan ^{Open a channel} 10:48, February 6, 2014 (UTC)

Just to give an idea about what that "backlog" was supposed to be: when we first discussed changes to the FA process (probably three or more years ago), the idea was to not display an article as "the best we currently have", if that article was nominated years ago and both it as well as the overall idea of what constitutes a very good MA article might have changed in the meantime. So some sort of automated removal process was suggested, that would lead to articles being "unfeatured" (for lack of a better term) after quite a while (2 years, I think). This first turned into a "reconfirmation process" (articles must be suggested for reconfirmation after time X, or be removed after time Y), and eventually even that process was watered down by suggesting to only start that process of automated removal once all FAs had been through the reconfirmation process once - the "backlog".

I still think that the idea of not calling an article, say, "the best of 2014" if it actually just was "the best of 2009", a sound one. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater just because the "backlog" addendum didn't quite work is not something I'd support. -- Cid Highwind (talk) 12:20, February 6, 2014 (UTC)

Let's be clear that Cid's suggestion would remove roughly 100 featured articles without discussion, outside of this one, without even looking at them. What I am suggesting would also "remove" the backlog by no longer requiring the articles to be reconfirmed within a certain time frame. The argument for keeping them remains what it was when when the process was first suggested, namely that "old" featured articles don't suddenly stop being some of MA's best work 24 months after they were featured, and if the only problem is that they are "old", they should be a better way to make them "new" again without removing them first.

Regarding the backlog and the automatic removals, I believe the first relevant mention of both happened here while the process was still being tweaked. This is supported by the automatic removal not being part of the policy itself until Dec. 13 2011, which means it was not part of the original suggestion in November or even part of the initial policy.

Some other points made I'd like to respond to, in no particular order, are:

Featured articles with blurbs are "always" featured, in that on a portal every few pages loads a new one is randomly selected from the list, so "eventually" should be within 24 hours easily.
The last few FA nominations seem to have turned people off to the process, and it's likely that there simply aren't articles out there right now that people want featured enough to put themselves through the nomination. Forcing the archivist running the nomination to be the one to respond to objections IMO is why there's a sharp drop off in nominations starting in 2006, so maybe we should look at that if we want to revitalize how we make "new" FAs, but I don't see why having "new" FAs means we should throw out the "old" ones.
As far as I know there is no way to put an article into a category after a certain number of edits from a fixed revision, nor would that really solve backlog issue because I bet most of the "old" FAs actually have a fair number of edits since they were featured. Cutler has had nine edits since it was featured two years ago resulting in no real noticeable change to the article, and extrapolating those numbers means we can conclude that a large number of edits to an article over time will simply be maintenance edits that don't really effect the content. There is no way to evaluate the content without a person actually reading it, which is why a people should be the determining factor in keeping or removing a featured article, not time or edits.
Cid, I agree that saying "the best of 2014" shouldn't be "the best of 2009", but we aren't saying that. We're saying FAs are the best work MA has to offer ever. both when they were featured and now. I don't see how we can say something stops being the best after a relatively arbitrary date without someone at least looking at it and making a judgement.

I may have missed a point in there, but this is already rather long and rambling. - Archduk 3 18:57, February 6, 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Archduk3. I think that's what I was trying to say, just you said it better. There may be articles that have been FAs for two, three, four years but had next to no edits to the content during that time. Yet, there will be FAs that have changed considerably. It should be up to people to look at them and nominate them for reconfirmation if they think the article has changed considerably, else it can remain as is, surely? --| TrekFan ^{Open a channel} 06:22, February 7, 2014 (UTC)

I find myself liking where TrekFan is going here. The idea that a reconfirmation should have to do with changes to the article and not an arbitrary period of time sounds better to me. I also agree that 'new' FAs should not mean getting rid of the 'old' ones. 31dot (talk) 22:43, February 15, 2014 (UTC)

The only real time limit in the purposed changes is the six month period right after an article is featured where it shouldn't be reconfirmed or removed. That time period is part of the current policy, and it's assumed that any changes made in that time that negatively effect the article should be the revertible kind or otherwise be fixable without having to remove the article from the featured list. Other than that time limit, articles would be reconfirmed or removed based on if the archivist thinks the article still meets the FA criteria, and when that happens would be entirely up to them. - Archduk 3 20:31, February 16, 2014 (UTC)

I do agree with the six month period. 31dot (talk) 21:27, February 16, 2014 (UTC)

It seems the "rough consensus" supports the changes I've purposed, and attempts to involve other users who have used the current system in this discussion seem to have failed, so I will make the changes as outlined shortly. - Archduk 3 00:11, February 23, 2014 (UTC)

The nomination process[]

...is broken.

Featured articles are suppose to showcase some of Memory Alpha's best work. They are suppose to be a community building event, where we, as Star Trek fans, can come together and make something we want to share with others that's not just entertaining and informative, but well made. I suppose I want to believe that.

The reality though, is that featured article nominations have become the opposite of all of that. They bring out the worst in us, not just as Star Trek fans, but as fans in general. Nominating an article might as well be sticking your head up and asking to be repeatedly kicked in the face for all it's worth. To an extent, self nominations are always going to be like that, since working on an article does result in a sense of ownership; not necessarily the "don't touch my words" kind that should be discouraged, but rather the "I made this and think it's pretty good" kind, which we should be encouraging, but aren't. Getting an article featured shouldn't be easy, but we've made it too hard, especially for the nominator.

Now I don't have a magic bullet for fixing discourse on the internet, but I do think I have an idea that might result in nominations actually happening again. The problems with the system, as I see it, are:

Nominators "own" the one article they are allowed to nominate.
- "If you nominate an article, you are expected to address valid objections that are raised" might as well be "casual editors and the people who mostly just read MA need not apply", which would be more honest IMO. That said, this is the problem I think is the most solvable. I think anyone* (with a "non-new" account, of course) should feel free to nominate articles, and those articles should have a chance even if said user is never seen again. Now, the reasons for these restrictions are still sound IMO, but I don't think this is the best way to address those.
This is the only policy or guideline that assumes silence means a lack of consensus.
- This is the heart of the problem as far as I'm concerned. Almost all the issues I see with the current process stem from this. The required number of supports, the self nomination exceptions, the withdraw option, the 3rd problem below, all stem from this. With that said, I don't think nominations should be able to pass in a void, but it's not in our best interest to have a system that results time and again in users going talk page to talk page begging for a few more "supports" rather than doing something a bit more in line with the goal of MA.
The nomination policy has crept to the point it's a legal document.
- We are not lawyers (as far as I know), and we shouldn't be wikilawyers. If the spirit of the creating FAs is what I wrote above, then the letter of the current policy has twisted that nearly to death. I think the text almost needs to be completely rewritten to follow the KISS principle, or at least get closer to it.

With this in mind, I suggest replacing the current policy with this:

Nominations
If you know of an article you think meets the featured article criteria, you can nominate it on the featured article nominations page.

Discussing nominations

Any registered user that has been in existence for at least two weeks or with at least twenty significant contributions can participate in nominations.
An archivist may start more than one nomination, provided that the overall number of concurrent nominations doesn't exceed [NUMBER].
Starting a nomination is considered a vote in support of the article.
At least one additional vote is required.
Be sure that you are familiar with the entire article before you form an opinion and vote.
If you approve of an article, write '''Support''' followed by your reasons.
If you have any objections, write '''Oppose''' followed by your reasons.
If you want to comment without supporting or opposing, you may do so.
To withdraw a vote, strike it out (with <s>...</s>) rather than removing it.
As always, sign your comments (~~~~). This is important to keep track of voting.

Frivolous nominations and/or objections, for example ones that have nothing to do with the featured article criteria and/or purely based on personal preference, are considered invalid and may be removed by administrators without notice.

Resolving nominations
A nomination can generally be resolved if it has been inactive for fourteen days, meaning that there were no new votes or work done to resolve objections in that time, or if there is no indication of a resolution after six weeks. The following results are possible:

If there was unanimous support for the article or all objections are resolved, the nomination is successful and the current revision of the article becomes the featured one. This should be done by adding the {{featured}} template to the bottom of the article.
If there are unresolved objections or less than two votes, the article is considered in dispute, and the the nomination is unsuccessful.
Nominations with five or more unanimous votes, either in support or objecting to the article, can be resolved after fourteen days, though the fifth support vote must have been cast at least 24 hours before the nomination is resolved.

Any objections to the article's blurb are independent of the article itself, though a successful nomination can not end until 24 hours after all objections to the blurb are resolved. When a nomination discussion is resolved, it should be placed at the top of that article's talk page; with a link placed in the nomination archive.

Renominating an article
If a nomination has been unsuccessful for whatever reason, the article may be suggested again after a waiting period of four weeks from the date of the initial rejection. This time should be used to address any unresolved objections that were made during the initial nomination process.

While this is blatantly ripped off from the review policy, I do think it solves the problems I've outlined above. Reducing the number of supports required doesn't actually make it easier for articles to pass, it just reflects the reality that nominations tend to not get five votes without some begging, and that silence is an implicit consensus for an action, not against. This, I think, also removes some of more complicated and offensive parts of the current process by leaving it open to anyone to make changes to address objections, and not penalizing someone for writing an article by making their opinion count less than the rest of the community.

I'm not sure about the [NUMBER] part though. I think it's a good idea to let someone nominate more than one article at a time, but I think there should be a upper limit on that if there are other nominations going, simply because it takes time for people to read an article in full.

Now that I've firmly grabbed the fifth rail here, thoughts? - Archduk 3 07:47, December 6, 2014 (UTC)

From my brief reading, it makes sense to me. 31dot (talk) 16:15, December 6, 2014 (UTC)

Having been on the (abusing) receiving end from certain parties in this regard, I was not in the least motivated to contribute to this subject. Yet, the thought and effort put forward by Duke warrants consideration, if only to respect his efforts; So here goes:

General Observations: While I'm often at loggerheads with Cid, he did make an in my mind valid observation, when he made the above, admittedly belligerent, remark, "I still think a better way would be to only call those articles "Featured Article" that are actually featured somewhere (novel idea, I know!)" When I started out at MA, a FA was indeed featured on a rotating basis feature on the portal page. I do not know why this is no longer the case now; I might have missed the discussion on this, but I can imagine that contributors might no longer want to go through the excruciating FA-process if it has de facto no meaning whatsoever, since an article in question is not really "featured" at all, an exercise in futility if you will. Speaking of excruciating,; I think that the very nature of current (virtual) social media excludes every and all possibility to conduct a civil procedure regarding the FA-process. Whether we like it or not, unfortunately, the anonymity of social media, such as MA (but certainly not exclusively as it has seemed to become commonplace everywhere), hugely allows for easy personal attacks, or to steadfastly adhere to a single point of view (and I'm not beyond admitting that I, to my disgrace, am on occasion succumbing to this pitfall as well), since no face-to-face restraints are in place...No amount of virtual regulation can remedy this, no matter how much the well-intended contributors wants it to be. Trolling is here to stay, I'm sorry to say.
Specific Observations: Discounting the above points, I'd like to make the following observations/remarks/recommedations,
- No more than two FA (re-)nominations should be featured at any given time; Two (re-)nominations is from a user's POV manageable to consider. I've noticed that contributors are "phasing out" when more than two are under consideration, resulting that none of them are read or (re-)viewed.
- In the same vein, no more that one article at one time can be (self-)nominated by a contributor, and not even that if already two are under advisement. (Re-)Nominations are therefore required to wait until a slot becomes available.
- Dispense with the "self-nomination is not a vote rule". I fully subscribe Duke's assessment that self-nominations are not " don't touch my words" submissions but rather the "I made this and think it's pretty good" submissions made in good faith. Until now, I've had no reason to believe otherwise from what I've seen. Therefore, self-nominations should count as a vote (incidentally, eliminating the one instance where such a vote is not counted as such). As compensation I propose at least TWO' additional votes as confirmation. And if more than three votes are cast, then majority rule should be applied, to have this procedure in line with other issues that call for votes. If only three votes are tendered, the "silence means a consensus" rule should apply after the alloted consideration time (which as proposed is fine by me), if unanimously.
Undecided Observations: I'm undecided, though doubtful on this issue,
- "Any registered user that has been in existence for at least two weeks or with at least twenty significant contributions can participate in nominations." This is in my mind a toughy...what is "significant"? Though fortunately rare, I've seen "contributors" in the past who only engaged in talkpages, making partisan arguments for single-minded point-of-views on talkpages only...Are those to be considered "significant contributions"? I'm inclined to say no, only recognizing those who made "significant contributions" to article pages themselves. I emphatically do not make this point to discourage newbies, but making "significant contributions" to article pages does induct newbies what it entails to make an article "good" and thus enables them to ascertain what it is what makes an article "good". I know I can only speak for myself, but it is by editing articles that taught me "the way of MA" so to speak...I find this a difficult one, and can not make up my mind on this...

These constitute my considerations thusfar...--Sennim (talk) 00:37, December 20, 2014 (UTC)

Featured articles are actually featured more than they used to be, since there is a FA on every portal that has relevant articles featured, as opposed to just the one on the main page. Returning FAs to the main page would require removing something of "equal size" (mainly the PotD), since FAs were moved off the main page to reduce the size of it.

Nominations from different users should not be restricted in any way, so while I think 2 is a reasonable number to restrict one person to, I will not support anything that requires people to "wait in line" for an open slot. That would be far to easy to abuse.

Self-nominations would simply be nominations, so there is no need to point them out or have different rules for them. Who wrote the article is immaterial to determining if the article meets the feature article criteria, and therefore isn't something that should be considered in the nomination process.

The "two weeks or with at least twenty significant contributions" requirement is because the page is locked so only registered users can edit it, and the system automatically blocks "new" users. "New" users are defined as being less than two weeks old with less than 20 contributions under a certain size and/or not marked as minor (I'm actually not entirely sure how that is determined). This is something that can't be changed on our end, and the reasoning for requiring people to use a registered account should be obvious.

If I missed anything, let me know. - Archduk 3 19:51, February 1, 2015 (UTC)

One thing, what is your stance on unanimous vote vs majority rule (with a minimum of three votes for either pro or contra, as I have proposed)? It is now applied to every other voting issue (there was one other instance I recall, but not exactly which one, where unanimity was required by MA rules, but was in practice abandoned by silent concensus).

I understand and subscribe to your concerns regarding abuse of a "wait in line" format, but I still feel that if more than two articles are nominated at any one given time, community interest will start to wane. Is there not a possibility to have a temporary file/template with nominations arranged by submission date and (automatically) uploaded in the appropriate order into the nomination page when a slot becomes available? I don't even know if this sounds ridiculous, but it is just some musing...

You mentioned "there is a FA on every portal that has relevant articles featured". Is this the template at the bottom on a FA page? This is the only visible FA mentioning I know of. If not, you may think me daft and enlighten me with an example:) Nevertheless, whatever my "reservations" (the term to be taken very lightly) are, and considering the thought and effort you've put into this issue, I'll subscribe to whatever you deem fit on this matter--Sennim (talk) 14:43, February 3, 2015 (UTC)

The FAs are organized by portal subject on the FA page and are randomized by subject via the {{featured article}} templates when displayed at the top of the portals themselves, which are linked to from the main page (dark blue box on the right) and the red site-wide navigation bar (in the wikia skin). I've been meaning to see if sulfur can have wikia pull the pageview numbers for those in comparison to the main page, since wikia deliberately drives traffic away from the main page, to see if they're working as intended, but that's a whole other can of worms right now.

While it is possible to template the nominations, and then use that to restrict the number of active/visible nominations at one time, I don't think it would be practical. A system like the page/file deletion discussions would have to be created, and then any nomination beyond the "first" two would have to be ignored by the community in the recent changes, which I grant you wouldn't be much of a stretch, as well as the "list" on the nomination page, which shouldn't be too hard to manage even if the "full" list would need to be reviewable somewhere, but keeping track of the the time a discussion is considered "active" would involve keeping track of when the last nomination ended instead of just checking the date of the first post in a nomination, and, as stated before, would introduce a number of ways to game the system. While there would be archival advantages to using a system like this, provided there wasn't a cap on the number "allowed" at the same time, which is why we use it for deletion discussions, I'm not sure those outweigh the disadvantages at this time.

If we want to say, in particular, a certain revision of an article is the best, we at least need to be able to say that it didn't have any problems worth mentioning. A review doesn't update the feature revision unless it's unanimous for that very reason, and expecting that level of excellence is fine to me, especially since FAs aren't required to run the wiki. It would be easier to make a case that admin nominations shouldn't be unanimous, because they are required to run the wiki (in the long term), but I doubt there would be much movement on that. Also, "lowering the bar,", as it were, to just a majority would make any new FAs arguably less than the ones that came before them, while there are still plenty of FAs from before five votes were required. FAs should still be "hard" to make, I just think the data shows it hasn't been in our best interest to make it hard and then punish archivists for daring to have an opinion on the quality of the article/their work and then force them to beg for validation from the internet. - Archduk 3 01:38, February 4, 2015 (UTC)

I see the wisdom in your argumentation, so I concede these points...Thanks for the example, I did not even know that these portal pages existed. Would it be an idea to have these portal pages listed on the main portal page at the bottom like the "Editing Memory Alpha" and "Related Wikis" bars?--Sennim (talk) 10:48, February 4, 2015 (UTC) edit: Never mind, I just discovered they are listed in the sidebar--Sennim (talk) 10:52, February 4, 2015 (UTC)