Featured Articles on Wikipedia
Top Encyclopedic Entries Showcase Academic Excellence and Research
Sep 18, 2009
The premise that drives Wikipedia is simple: give every human being the ability to contribute to an encyclopedia, and the collaboration should produce a comprehensive overview of human knowledge. The online encyclopedia's featured articles are the examples that show what this model is capable of producing. Fine-tuned by sometimes hundreds of editors, each featured article is extensively reviewed for quality of references, consistency of writing style, and neutrality. In addition, the topic itself must be stable; information about it cannot change daily or be subject to “edit wars” about the content itself.
Featured articles serve as the best of encyclopedic resources, in that they provides scholars with an overview of available research in a format that allows easy access to sources for further research. Like all encyclopedias, Wikipedia is not considerable a credible source due to its distance from the subject; however, featured articles in particular serve as a directory of sorts of the best available sources.
Style and Other Featured Article Criteria
Wikipedia does not have a standard style that is used throughout the site, although individual articles are expected to be internally consistent. For example, an entry may be written using either British or American English standard spelling on the English Wikipedia, but should not include spellings from both. Because of these variations, the style requirements for featured articles offer considerable flexibility in some areas:
- The lead section must be concise, but long enough to both summarize the subject and “prepare the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;”
- The structure must be appropriate, meaning it should be organized in a logical and hierarchical manner, and it should include “a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents;” and
- Citations should be made in a consistent format throughout the text.
Other criteria for featured articles address the academic value of the entry itself, namely:
- Well-written prose of a professional standard, which should be “engaging, even brilliant.”
- Comprehensive treatment of the subject which neglects no major facts and provides a suitable context for the reader.
- Well-researched subject matter, in that it thoroughly represents all the existing major academic literature. Citations in featured articles must be of very high quality, as well: ideally they should refer only to peer-reviewed articles in widely-respected academic journals.
- Its neutrality cannot be disputed.
- The stability of the subject is relevant, because articles, once featured, will only hold that status as long as it continues to fulfill all the criteria. Articles on which research is ongoing are much more likely to fall short of these standards in the future.
- All other Wikipedia criteria, including those for notability, must be followed.
Identification of and Exposure for Featured Articles
A bronze star is visible in the top right corner of any featured article. All featured articles are listed in the featured article directory, and each day a new featured article is summarized on the main page of the site. As each featured article appears on the main page in time, some of the topics have raised eyebrows; for example, the July 9, 2009 featured article dealt with an historic English street with a name now deemed highly offensive by many people, but Wikipedia does not censor its content even as it holds it to stringent academic guidelines, so the topic was included once the community judged it as fulfilling all the criteria listed above.
There are other types of featured content, but only articles and pictures appear on the front page – the other featured content, such as sounds and lists, do not generate sufficient widespread interest.
Qualification and Monitoring of Featured Articles
Like most everything on Wikipedia, the process for obtaining featured article status is a complex consensus-driven process that requires a number of steps to complete. The process requires the collaboration of a number of editors, although it is unclear if this was by design. An article should be peer-reviewed prior to its nomination, and during the process (which can take weeks), the nominator must address all specific objections raised by editors who weigh in. The director of featured articles judges when a consensus about the article is reached, and promotes it if that is the will of the community.
After promotion to featured status, an article must continue its high standard or it may find itself debated again in the featured article review section. In that case, editors determine if the article still fulfills the criteria, or if it must have its designation changed to “former featured article.” As of this writing, Wikipedia has 2,617 featured article and 781 former featured articles. 33 articles which lost featured status regained it by again being nominated and accepted by the community.
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