D&D Wiki talk:Featured Articles

Criteria Suggestion

1. It is well written, comprehensive and stable.

a. "Well Written" means that the prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of professional standard.

b. "Comprehensive" means that the article does not neglect major facts and details.

c. "Stable" means that the article is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and that its content does not change significantly from day to day, except for edits made in response to the featured article process.

2. It follows the formatting guidelines, including:

3. It has images and other media where they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status.

4. Where appropriate it adheres to the d20 SRD or the d20 Modern SRD.

5. Variant rules should be beneficial, understandable and not overly encumberant.

a. "Beneficial" means that the variant rule should be useful to player's or DM's

b. "Understandable" means that the variant rule is written in such a way that it can be comprehended by the average player

c. "Not overly encumberant" means that the variant rule should not be more complected than is necessary. It should enhance game play not slow it down.

--Hawk 19:49, 4 March 2008 (MST)

I added it then changed it a bit (http://www.dandwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Featured_Articles&diff=236146&oldid=236144). Let me know what you think. --Green Dragon 01:36, 5 March 2008 (MST)

I saw good work your words are much more eloquent --Hawk 02:00, 5 March 2008 (MST)

Thanks :). --Green Dragon 20:44, 13 March 2008 (MDT)

Suggestions

I suggest adding a section:

=== Featured Articles Under Review ===

These are all the featured articles that have been nominated for review. Sometimes articles may change dramatically or the criteria for featured status may be changed, articles that may no longer meet the criteria should be listed for review.

<dpl>

debug=1

category=Featured Articles Under Review

order=ascending

</dpl>

--Hawk 23:31, 4 March 2008 (MST)

Go for it. Also, you should make a template to go along with it. --Green Dragon 01:37, 5 March 2008 (MST)

By template do you mean category? --Hawk 02:01, 5 March 2008 (MST)

Oh you mean Template for the talk page like the other one I pretty much stole from wikipedia. Sorry a bit slow tonight. --Hawk 02:04, 5 March 2008 (MST)

You're fine. Thanks for doing all that. Also, I changed the image on the template (I thought it looked a little silly (it almost appeared as an arrow, and especially at first glance it did)) and truncated the wording. --Green Dragon 02:37, 5 March 2008 (MST)

You're like my own personal editor :)... or perhaps more of a janitor cleaning up my mess :-p --Hawk 02:40, 5 March 2008 (MST)

I still think the template:featured article looks weird on the right above the author box but thats just me. I also think we should find a 'director' for this section unless you honestly want more work to do GD? but that can wait until things get busier here... they will I tell you even if I have to pull out my +3 poking stick of motivation. --Hawk 02:50, 5 March 2008 (MST)

I agree, a director can wait until things get more busy here. Although I would like to see this poking stick of motivation ;). --Green Dragon 22:08, 5 March 2008 (MST)

I try not to use it too often as it is a cursed item there is a 30% chance the target will attack the wielder out of annoyance. the chance goes up by 5% every time it is used on the same target. Perhaps you should update that news item about all this so it says something along the lines of polish up your work children and submit it for review your community needs you. lol--Hawk 22:48, 5 March 2008 (MST)

Done. --Green Dragon 00:15, 6 March 2008 (MST)

It's amusing how many news items I have instigated in the month I've been here lol. *Ponders more changes :P*. --Hawk 05:53, 6 March 2008 (MST)

Give it a Try

Someone should nominate an article so we can give this a try. --Green Dragon 02:38, 5 March 2008 (MST)

Democracy

I do not think nominations should be a democracy. I think the opposes and the supports should we weighed on their merits and a final decision based on that be decided. Thoughts? Who would make the final call, or can anyone think of a way to make the community make the final call? --Green Dragon 02:50, 5 March 2008 (MST)

see above ^^^ --Hawk 02:51, 5 March 2008 (MST)

Democratically elect a director (s)he makes the final call --Hawk 02:52, 5 March 2008 (MST)

God I thieve a lot of ideas from wikipedia someone stop me *slaps self* --Hawk 02:55, 5 March 2008 (MST)

Lol. --Green Dragon 22:08, 5 March 2008 (MST)

GD: as a general rule of thumb how long do you think a nomination should be left open and just to be clear soon as we don't have a director yet you'll be making the final call on article nominations right? --Hawk 22:37, 6 March 2008 (MST)

I will make the final call right now. Also, I think we can leave them open until the person with the final say in the nomination calls it good. Currently, for example, the Spider Rider is almost done whereas Chuck Norris is slowly dying. That one will soon be a failed nomination (most likely) and once the Spider Rider is finished with an example NPC, encounter, and a few other things, it will be a passed nomination. If those things never materialize, it will be a failed nomination. I guess I am trying to say that they should each be taken on their own merits. --Green Dragon 21:18, 9 March 2008 (MDT)

Fair enough :) --Hawk 21:41, 9 March 2008 (MDT)

The spider rider has an example NPC ect. now. --Sam Kay 10:41, 12 March 2008 (MDT)

Please only post comments here that pertain to this discussion. This is not an MoI system. Thanks. --Green Dragon 20:22, 12 March 2008 (MDT)

Maybe make it a vote between a democratically elected council of five people (or just amongst the admins). You could put the voting site up as a featured article for a week, and then replace it with whatever the nominated article is supposed to be. For the voting system, nomination would involve making a section with their name as the title, and then below you have people vote post "yea" and then sign to vote for him. After the week is over, the four people with the most votes would form the council, along with Green Dragon. Example.

I find that it works how it is now with the Featured Article Criteria being discussable and thereby having a democratic nature. In addition, this eliminates the problem of user-requirements (which are poor online tools). --Green Dragon (talk) 18:50, 26 January 2013 (MST)

Okay. I didn't realize that we had solved the problem. If we already have a system that works well, we should just stick with it. The comment was mine, BTW, I just forgot to sign it. --Salasay Δ 19:19, 26 January 2013 (MST)

Time Limits?

I have been frequently analyzing my Dashing Swordsman (which is in a slump right now) and as I did so, I decided to take a look at the other nominees. Apparently, none of the nominees have been looked at in a while. While this makes me feel slightly better about my own nominee being covered in dust, I am curious (and anxious). Is it possible for nominees to be removed or deleted or anything if they get ignored for a long enough period of time? It could be a while before any of these make much progress. --Sir Milo Teabag 21:18, 4 May 2008 (MDT)

I agree, articles that are not improving should stop being nominated. --Green Dragon 23:47, 4 May 2008 (MDT)

In that case, how long do you think I could safely postpone editing my class? I want to keep it around, but I still haven't figured out how to work the preload. If it is removed, could I re-nominate it again in the future after I finally get around to making those changes? I also want to know what criteria we use to determine if something is too old or not. --Sir Milo Teabag 06:21, 8 May 2008 (MDT)

So to bring this topic up again, featured article nomination is almost a joke. Talk:Runic Golem (5e Creature) has been idle since June 2017. Can we at least establish a process for removing a nomination? The handful times this topic, time frame, is mentioned and brushed aside in conjunction with how many times featured articles are said to be not paid attention beg the question of importance for them on the wiki? Kydo had a good idea below to give them purpose, but I don't think it'd be best idea.

Featured articles seem like a great idea, but not one people want to keep up on or actively contribute too. I believe the current nominees have 2-3 bullets, and each one the same users commenting. Kydo was trying to get something going, but met with barriers and roadblocks; the reasoning being that FAs aren't really paid attention to.

I think time frames will help create this area of wiki, otherwise, without a deadline/suspense then why WOULD anyone stop by to check on these? BigShotFancyMan (talk) 00:47, 7 April 2018 (MDT)

I really want to get this working the best way we can. I need some proposals for how to regulate the FA process. For example, would the time frame start when the page is nominated, or be based on addressing the nomination's comments? The first way seems best, but I get worried that if no one has the time to adequately look over the page before the time runs out, that the quality gets ignored. Can we first have a few concrete proposals to discuss? --Green Dragon (talk) 03:22, 7 April 2018 (MDT)

I think 6 months or a year would be suitable durations due to their length. Once that time passes without significant improvement an article can be removed. Alternatively, if an article doesn't meet the FA standard at a fundamental/conceptually level and doesn't show signs of improvement an admin can make the call to have it removed. Would something like this be suitable? --ConcealedLight (talk) 05:45, 7 April 2018 (MDT)

6 months from nomination seems more than reasonable. It could be lengthened or shortened if necessary but a starting point is good.

Would an admin scrapping a nominee based on that criteria be similar to the snowball clause CL? That’s how I read that, looking for clarity. I’d like to discuss that more too, seems many articles get many big edits while being a FAN (Featured Article nomination) But, I’ll stay focused on timeframes here. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 08:25, 7 April 2018 (MDT)

Now that I think about it yeah it does share some fundamental similarities with Wikipedia's snowball clause. --ConcealedLight (talk) 09:18, 7 April 2018 (MDT)

Also, I'd like it to be noted as a point of conversation after this one that I believe there should be some way to differentiate a good article and something worthy of becoming a Featured Article. The Earth Giant (5e Race) and Alraune (5e Race), for example, are both really exceptional articles in term of their lore and integration with first-party content as well as their mechanical distinctiveness and the racial traits alignment with the lore elements. In comparison to the recently succeeded nominee, the Sobruaro (5e Race), which I believe falls short of this. --ConcealedLight (talk) 09:18, 7 April 2018 (MDT)

As far as good vs featured, there was Discord discussion about getting articles the wiki deemed complete and then appropriate DPLs (so sorry if I got that wrong) to categorize them, and they’d be locked to avoid random edits. Would that accomplish what your asking about above? BigShotFancyMan (talk) 09:47, 7 April 2018 (MDT)

I believe so, though there would need to be a method of distinction between them as to avoid deputs over styles. However, like the featured article scheme it doesn't get much attention even amoung users I would consider more active. --ConcealedLight (talk) 13:58, 7 April 2018 (MDT)

I agree with a 6 month timeframe, and that admins will look over the nomination process. I would like to propose, however, that if an FAN page does not get reviewed then it automatically fails after 6 months, and must be renominated. Since it seems like we have already reached a concensus, and no one opposes this, go ahead and implement it. --Green Dragon (talk) 23:13, 8 April 2018 (MDT)

Neat. In regards to a FAN page. I'm assuming you mean something that is directly based on existing content from other franchises such as the Hollow (5e Race)(Bleach, the anime) or the Inkling, Variant (5e Race)(Splatoon, the video game) and hasn't developed beyond that. The Earth Giant (5e Race) was originally by the definition I've just given a FAN page based off the giants in the anime, The Seven Deadly Sins until the FA nomination process caused it to develop into something more as I mixed and matched first party giant lore into it. Is my assumption about the definition correct here?--ConcealedLight (talk) 06:00, 9 April 2018 (MDT)

No, sorry. I meant "Featured Article Nominee" with FAN; per BSFM's definition above. --Green Dragon (talk) 08:12, 9 April 2018 (MDT)

Thanks. Yes, that seems fair. --ConcealedLight (talk) 08:33, 9 April 2018 (MDT)

FA Goals

I believe we should set some goals on our FA. Goals such as How long a Featured Article stays on the main page while defining how we get an article to FA status with questions like How many votes/What percentage of support is needed for an article to be considered FA as well as How long does a nomination last?. With questions like these we can prevent the static appearance of our main page and help improve more articles. My personal answers:

• I believe that an attainable goal immediately would be monthly, and once a routine is set, within a few months we should be able to have a weekly fa on the main page.
• With our current FA nomination discussions in mind, I'd say most of the voting/commenting happens in the first week, and that nominations should have that deadline.   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   10:30, 17 December 2008 (MST)

Question

I think Endhaven (3.5e Campaign Setting) is worthy of a FA nom and to see what the rest of the community thinks. However, the campaign setting is massive, so my question is this: Is it possible to highlight an entire campaign setting for FA status or would we need to seek out individual pages to highlight on specifics?   Hooper   talk    contribs    email   08:50, 9 January 2009 (MST)

Still Active?

So is this still being worked on? Derro was added back in June. All the noms except mine and neo-reploid were from over a year ago and haven't been acted on or rejected. Is there a process to this? --Wrecan 09:50, 28 September 2011 (MDT)

Technically, yes, it's being used. But practically... the last featured article was nominated then confirmed within 30 hours (after only one vote), and after nomination there was a huge discussion which basically amounted to "this isn't good enough to be featured". JazzMan 09:57, 28 September 2011 (MDT)

No. It was nominated, let's see, 17:03, 23 February 2009 (MST) and confirmed 12:20, 8 June 2011 (MDT). Things need to be of exceptional quality to be a FA, which almost none of these things are (I get the feeling that some people like nominating things which are not that great to improve them). --Green Dragon 18:51, 3 December 2011 (MST)

Nominated 15:59, January 6, 11, confirmed 21:24, January 7, 11. We must be talking about different articles. JazzMan 15:03, 5 December 2011 (MST)

That one, right. I assumed no one would say anything anyway since the main contributor kept silent. It was mostly fine too. This doesn't deter from the problem that people use this as a dump for their work which they want improved (e.g. Talk:Races of War (3.5e Sourcebook)– e.g. feats). For this reason its hard to cycle through the pages quickly enough. --Green Dragon 12:21, 9 January 2012 (MST)

Well since this is only supposed to be used for pages that are complete, I can't see why people would use it for pages they want completed. As for "kept silent"... that's hard to judge on such a slow-moving wiki. The user's last contribution before his page was nominated was about a month an a half prior. JazzMan 18:16, 15 January 2012 (MST)

I started going through them. As you can notice pages like Chocobo Breeding (3.5e Variant Rule) didn't even have an image. I'm all for getting more pages to be FAs and thereby cycling through them faster, so by all means please take some initiative here and get these looked over. I am sure you know what a good page is. --Green Dragon 12:18, 31 January 2012 (MST)

Would it be worthwhile to introduce something like the good article review like wikipedia has? It could focus more on formatting and things so people would have a good idea of what needs to be corrected before they try to submit it for FA. Tivanir 11:29, 23 March 2012 (MDT)

I think the problem is that people do not feel comfortable submitting pages for FA review. If we got more pages in the FA review system then I think we could consider it. I think that first we need to make sure that people do not feel offed by the FA process. How can we do this? Do you think that it would make sense to simplify (at least attempt) the process? Ideas? --Green Dragon (talk) 17:05, 27 August 2012 (MDT)

Revival

OK, so, as part of the recent theme of revitalizing the wiki and community, we have discovered that one of the major complaints we face, is a lack of quality oversight. Most people want this site to switch over to a curated sort of system, where only accepted material is allowed. That is kind of antithetical to the wiki model of inclusive collaboration. However, it was mentioned that the FA system could be used to create a sort of democratic/consensus curated gallery of quality pages. As a reaction to that, I have made a plan to, every week, nominate an article, vote on a nominee, try to improve a page to nomination quality, close an outdated nomination, or mark a degraded FA for review. My goal is to create a stream of continuous improvement through the FA system. I am hoping others will join me in this activity. I noticed a few concerning things though...

"1.Thus, pages that are in effect "options" of DMs and player characters cannot become featured articles (equipment, feats, skills, etc)." What the heck does that mean? Isn't pretty much EVERYTHING on this wiki a player or DM option? Would that not mean that no page can be an FA?

Next, a lot of the stuff the expectations link to go down a rabbit hole of old pages which seem to assume 3.5 is the only edition of D&D in existence. That really needs to be dealt with.

Third, the requirements expect us to use references for rules a lot. Almost nothing on the wiki does this, and I'm having trouble finding anything that states it is expected of us, aside from FAs. I'm not sure if this is actually necessary at all.

Finally, as has been stated, there is no clear timeline for these things. As someone above said, I think it should be 1 month. After which, the nomination should be closed. Currently, pages remain in nominee status for months on end, to the extent that people completely forget they even exist. It's ridiculous. Clearly, nobody has anything else to say about the farmer background, let's just close the thing! Deadlines create urgency, which encourages progress.

I was also considering, if this takes off the way I hope it will, once we have a large number of FAs, we could organize them into categories, so browsers could find certain kinds of things more easily- that way they wouldnt have to dig through a single list of everything and the kitchen sink. People who want only curated, reviewed material could then turn to the FAs for what they need. --Kydo (talk) 05:14, 27 August 2016 (MDT)

A curator is a position that operates independently with their own goals to work towards, and for their pieces to have a better application to their respective businesses.

I don't think we will be seeing a theme of revitalization for the wiki and community. Rather, taking steps to solve larger information voids is what I see coming out of these discussions.

The regard that options cannot be FA material is because their content does not have enough information present to even be more than a link on the Main Page were they FAs. You will have to argue this point I am afraid, since this standard is set high to get interesting content everywhere through the FA process.

With the inclusion of the 5e SRD I don't feel that these expectations are only for 3.5e. Indeed, they are derived from Wikipedia.

The reason that there are not many FAs is because, like you stated, almost nothing on the wiki does this. But, the high quality control is also derived from Wikipedia.

Before setting a timeline I think we need to see the improved usage of the FA system. Lets first test and then re-policy this. And, if there are lots of FAs at this point then again we can re-policy this page to meet these expectations, like by categories or something. --Green Dragon (talk) 06:54, 27 August 2016 (MDT)

I'm not sure where you get the definition for curator from, here. If it's from wikipedia's culture, it will be totally lost on me, as I have never participated in that community. I was using it as a stand-in for "dedicated reviewer-type guy" to connect it to the issues brought up by the peanuts gallery. THEY want curation. Actual curation would suck the life out of the wiki. So as a compromise, why re-brand the FA system as "curated" in name, and post some people to take care of it and call them "curators". It's a spin designed to satisfy a demand by changing as little as possible. Small changes are easier to enact, monitor, and reverse, so it makes sense to try and make the most out of as little as you can get away with.

If we want the content to improve in quality, the community needs a large number of active users. Our reviewing tools basically rely on that. Right now, we have a terrible reputation, a few active members, and a HEAP of content by short-term users. Most users never really look at anyone else's work, and among those who do, most don't even know there are quality standards or tools to enforce them and improve pages. There just aren't enough hands using the tools we have. Revitalization seems quite important to me.

You didn't answer my question about options. Isn't EVERYTHING on dandwiki an option? If it's just about page size, shouldn't that be explicitly stated, rather than a vague description?

I never said these expectations are only for 3.5e. I said that the links take you to guidelines which give mixed messages, saying they are general, but then detailing things specific to 3.5. That is confusing and needs to be fixed.

How exactly does filling your class (or whatever) with page references to the PHB and DMG improve quality, exactly?

OK, well, like I said, I'm going to try and start making active use of this. We'll see what happens, I guess. --Kydo (talk) 07:52, 27 August 2016 (MDT)

Regarding references and citations, is turning a pre-existing keyword into a link to the relevant SRD page an acceptable alternative to a page reference? This would be more desirable to me because, though it takes much more work to do, it looks and reads a heck of a lot easier. --Kydo (talk) 08:53, 28 August 2016 (MDT)

Yes, of course a link to the SRD is better than a keyword reference. Where did you get this idea from? That should be fixed if you do not mind.

Okay, maybe this example of "curator" will make more sense out of what I mean. Example: "By curating Pathfinder, Paizo is offering D&D players an option that uses rules tested over many years that is easily playable!" (If I recall right these were the marketing strategies). If we try to put this into an FA example, it doesn't make sense really. "By curating FAs, these curators offer players an ?option that uses ?rules exemplifying great work on D&D Wiki." Its just a grammatical terminology point, but I understand what you mean. I would prefer if you can explain this in more detail please.

If you want to fully describe a special allowance for any type of page (e.g. options) to be a FA if it has enough content to fulfill the synopsis on the Main Page then just change it, since its right of course. --Green Dragon (talk) 11:26, 28 August 2016 (MDT)

OK, so, I made an attempt to clarify the parts which seemed vague/confusing to me. I tried to follow the spirit of the policies as I understand them from talking with you. Please feel free to revert it or edit it further if I got the intent wrong someplace.

I'm curious: Should preloads which reference rules contain references to those rules? Like, where the 5e Race preload says "Speed", should that link to 5e SRD:Movement?

Ok, Regarding curation, here's my idea:

• It's just curation in name only, so the people who want curation think we've made a significant change just for them. In reality, it's just a minor change of perspective. It's a spin, a scheme, a tilt of the head, a slight manipulation.
• First, we could have dedicated FA reviewers. (I guess that'd just be me on Sundays for now.) FA reviewers would be called "Curators", because that's the ultimate effect that they'll have on the wiki. (Also, that's the buzzword our detractors like. Simply using that word could turn some of our opponents into active users, if they like the idea of participating in such an activity.) Anyone can nominate and vote on an FA, but "curators" have elected to specifically focus on that activity. They have no special authorities, they're just like any user, they have simply chosen to take on the extra responsibility of tending to the FA system. They're hobby-gardeners in a literal sort of way, tending to the "garden" that is the FA system. People become curators by just adding their name to a list, kind of like the helpers page. In fact, it could just be added as a section on the helpers page. Really, they're just a different type of helper- a proactive type. (So, for example, if a person nominated a page for FA, most of the "curators" would likely take time out of their day to go review the page, attempt to improve it to standard, and probably vote on it. At least one of the curators would note the date of nomination, and close the vote after it has expired.) This practice would maintain the collaborative nature of the wiki. I guess you could call it collaborative curation!
• Second, once we have a team/group of "curators", and they have created a large collection of FAs, with examples from each of the major sections of each edition, then we could restructure the FA list into a sort of "gallery" or "library" of quality pages. This "curated" collection of material would then be readily available to anyone who accessed the site. It would be resistant to degradation, because you'd have a group of people dedicated to preserving the quality of all FAs. If it were possible to search the FA list exclusively at some point in the future, that would also improve peoples' attitudes toward this site.

Anyways, that's my idea. Not sure how well it gels with you. It's just a little schemy, I know, but sometimes a good scheme is what people really need. --Kydo (talk) 15:24, 28 August 2016 (MDT)

This is an interesting idea. How it would work be nice to study, but I have a simpler way of bringing attention to the status of FA pages. Why not include the FA summary on the page's hidden under the FA template? For the magazines we could make it shown by default. This would provide a very detailed summary of the page, and let lots of users know that once they have such a summary then their page has been reviewed in the page's complete state. --Green Dragon (talk) 11:12, 6 October 2016 (MDT)

That's a golly-dang good idea! We could simply add a drop-down to {{Featured Article}} where we can write the summary, then make the template <noinclude> everything outside of the summary, so that the current featured article template can be told to just reference the article page as a template and output said summary! That way old FA summaries are still kept, so people can still read them in the future, after a page is no longer the current FA, and the display process for the current FA is simplified! --Kydo (talk) 23:27, 6 October 2016 (MDT)

Nominees: Democratic or Appointed? Timed or Indefinite?

OK. I've read over the discussions, and it seems these two issues were never resolved:

1. Should FA nominees be decided by democratic process, or should they be decided by an appointed/elected individual/group?
2. How long should we wait before an FA nomination is closed and results determined?

Based on my reading of the above, the answer currently is:

1. FAs are nominated by anyone, and are voted on democratically by whoever notices, (if anyone notices) but their actual transition to FA is ultimately handled by an appointed individual. At the moment, I guess that appointment has defaulted to GD. That is a very weird system.
2. Indefinitely. Until the appointed person makes a decision one way or another. Which, apparently, can take as much as 3 years or more if the community is especially inactive and the appointed person especially busy.

Here is my proposal for an explicit resolution to these two topics.

1. Anyone can nominate an article as an FA. Anyone can nominate an FA for review. Anyone can vote on an FA nomination. Any admin-level User can close a vote when its time is up.
2. Nomination voting should be limited to 1 quarter. (3 months) With an inactive community, that is plenty of time to catch if people are interested. In an active community, that will ensure a thorough sampling of opinion.

There is one other problem though. This page gives no explanation or guidelines for how to close a nomination. I think it should go like this:

• At the end of the nominee's voting time, (nominations will need a timestamp for this to work) an admin level user will close the vote by counting the votes and declaring the result based only on those votes, even if they personally disagree with the results. (Either the nomination passes, and the article becomes or remains an FA, or the nomination fails, and the article either remains in its current state, or loses its FA status.)
• The closer then removes the nomination template from the talk page and applies the Featured Article template to the main page.
• The closer changes the protection of the page to autoconfirmed, to prevent IP User convenience-vandalism. Giving FAs autoconfirmed protection is also a little candy to entice people to nominate and get involved, but it also would help make the good content on the wiki more robust- a browser could fairly confidently trust in the quality and stability of such an article. But more importantly, by only upping it to autoconfirmed, we aren't taking away the community's overall capacity to continue improvement of the page- it doesn't stifle collaboration.
• Finally, the closer does... whatever it is that makes the most recently selected FA appear on the front page. (I have no idea how that thing works!)

My objectives were to increase the accessibility and visibility of the process. By making it more accessible, and by making the process transparent, we can continue to foster the collaborative spirit of the community, and encourage new users to participate because it has a low learning curb to do so. By making it easier to interact with the FA process, it is likely that there will be more nominations, making FAs more visible, and thus FA status more desirable, and so driving more FA activity. This is a good thing, because even a failed nomination could stimulate sudden and significant quality improvements to a page. Also, by making the whole process complete and transparent, we can make it possible for the community to self- regulate its FA process in exactly the same way our improvement templates are supposed to work. --Kydo (talk) 23:24, 11 September 2016 (MDT)

Currently the process is based on a "consensus" (see page). I find this word works well since it deals with rules, users, meta policies, etc. If we want to make it work time based then I think there need to be more users than just me who looks over this whole section. I will not work with time since this is harder for me (I can tell you that now), but if there is serious interest then we should consider this. This whole section is already open to anyone doing anything. Do you see any confusions in this regard? --Green Dragon (talk) 11:06, 6 October 2016 (MDT)

Yes. First, consensus is an extremely broad, vague concept. In an inactive community, it basically just perpetuates stagnation unless someone harasses everyone he can find into participating.

I think there should at least be a maximum time limit, because a page being under nomination for over three years makes the nomination process, and FAs in general, look completely pointless, even comedic. Without any urgency, it lacks credibility, and it gives no users any motivation to weigh in on a page. If there were a deadline attached to a nomination, people who want to say something would have good reason to say it immediately, rather than putting it off and eventually forgetting about it. Furthermore, pages which pass within a limited time frame appear more valuable than one that took years before someone woke up to vote on it. It implies there was greater difficulty of achieving that passing vote, which again lends greater credibility to the FA process. I understand you are a busy person- we all have lives outside of this hobby site. However, I have patrolling FAs and interacting with nominations written into my weekly schedule. As long as I'm active in this community, I can promise you that you won't be the only person reviewing nominations. With two people watching over the process, it will certainly be more responsive. Does that take some of the weight off your shoulders?

As for anyone working with it... It took me a few hours of tinkering around to figure out exactly how a page makes its way through the nomination process to current featured article. It took me two years to learn all of the techniques and markup which make it possible. It is not simple or obvious, and a new user trying to participate in the more complicated elements of that process (the daisy-chained templates) could make a terribly big mess of it. If we want everyone to be able to participate, it needs to be simplified and made accessible through page navigation. --Kydo (talk) 23:47, 6 October 2016 (MDT)

FAs Under Review

The dandwiki magazine articles have been up for review for a little while. --Kydo (talk) 12:15, 18 September 2016 (MDT)

So, I guess, nobody's really interested in maintaining the Featured Articles project then? --Kydo (talk) 20:09, 25 September 2016 (MDT)

How many votes does a project need, at minimum, in order to be added to, or removed from, the Featured Articles list? Is there a minimum? If there is a minimum, which I think there should be, so people don't just self-authorize an FA, what happens if a vote does not meet that number? Does it just default to a fail, as an indication of it being unnoteworthy? These things should be stated on the page for clarity so more users may interact with this project more comfortably. --Kydo (talk) 20:13, 25 September 2016 (MDT)

Nominations are based on a "consensus". Sorry, maybe you felt that your questions were not answered in due time but since this section is mostly quiet until a page is nominated, I for one did not check on the pages. I hope you got the answers you were looking for now. --Green Dragon (talk) 11:09, 6 October 2016 (MDT)

Wait, we only review for nominations? Why bother with a review process then? --Kydo (talk) 23:53, 6 October 2016 (MDT)

Sorry, I should have said all FA pages hold their status by way of consensus, be it nominations or reviews. --Green Dragon (talk) 05:56, 7 October 2016 (MDT)

Minor Tweak

I think the "{{Featured Article Nominee}}" should be "{{Featured Article Nominee|~~~~~}}" as there isn't an indication that this template takes an additional argument. Makes copy-pasting easier as well. ConcealedLight (talk) 03:35, 24 January 2018 (MST)

I had forgotten to change this since the date parameter was added. Its fixed. --Green Dragon (talk) 08:21, 24 January 2018 (MST)

Rotating Featured Articles

I believe it would be preferable to have rotating featured articles, as opposed to a singular featured article on the main page that gets changed whenever a newer page becomes a featured article. While I don't know how current feature articles works, I do know that is it possible to have rotating featured articles based on a few tests I have done on User:Blobby383b/WIP/8. As such, I would like to hear other's opinions about this change as I believe that it would be beneficial for the wiki to implement such a feature.--Blobby383b (talk) 15:36, 28 January 2018 (MST)

I prefer a single article, since that stresses the accomplishment for a page becoming a featured article (like Wikipedia's daily Featured Article). However, if no one else agrees then let's change it. --Green Dragon (talk) 22:33, 28 January 2018 (MST)

I 100% support a rotating article! If a person sees a featured article that they're maybe not as big a fan of, they don't have to wait for a new featured article to go up to see one that they really like. It also means that the limelight for the second newest featured article doesn't end, it still has a good chance of showing up to be showed off! (Varkarrus (talk) 11:28, 29 January 2018 (MST))

Like GD, I prefer the current method of highlighting a single article, though I do understand the potential merits of the other system. Is there anyway to implement a "random featured article" button on the main page?--GamerAim (talk) 11:38, 29 January 2018 (MST)

I like the idea of rotating featured articles. This would bring to people's attention more featured articles than if just the most recent FA was displayed on the main page, since we don't change the FA on the main page as often as Wikipedia does. We could determine randomly which FA is displayed on the main page using <choose>, giving preference to a certain number of the most recent FAs. (I feel like 8 would be a good number?) — Geodude671 (talk | contribs | email)‎ . . 11:43, 29 January 2018 (MST)

Instead of simply randoming the featured articles. I'd like to suggest a comprimise. That being that the insert of some sort of slider that would allow one to click through the preview of each of the featured articles in random. Kinda like how one looks through photos on a camera but with a random image coming up each time. --ConcealedLight (talk) 12:15, 29 January 2018 (MST)

The method I suggested above wouldn't completely randomize the feature articles as you can adjust how often featured articles appear(for example 40% current fa, 40% recent fa's, and 20% all other fa's). Adding Current Featured Article/Random to the current featured article setup might be a good solution as well.--Blobby383b (talk) 14:02, 29 January 2018 (MST)

Looking at SMW's Slideshow format, this may just do the trick. We will just need to play around with if would work, and see if we can get it so that we can click through a preview of each of the featured articles in random. --Green Dragon (talk) 23:17, 29 January 2018 (MST)

Does anyone have an alternative solution to this work-around? --Green Dragon (talk) 11:42, 30 January 2018 (MST)

I think slideshow would work well, as long as we can-- A) ensure that the first one to appear is always the most recent FA, B) ensure that nav-controls are show so that if someone can tab through the list easily, C) that the delay is of reasonable length to read the article slowly, and D) the Illusionary Weapons Master is shown in every other slot. --Salasay ♄ 19:22, 30 January 2018 (MST)

I'll work to get that extension installed. For the slideshow, we should be able to show the pages in a certain order. This may be the most difficult part to get right, as nav-controls and the delay time can be manually set. --Green Dragon (talk) 22:37, 30 January 2018 (MST)

The extension should be installed. Thanks! — Blue Dragon (talk) 09:34, 22 February 2018 (MST)

I put a format together, which I feel works. . The current issues are that external images and image captions do not work, but I doubt that anyone can say right away how to fix it. Otherwise the length is set, but I doubt that this is an easy fix either. Maybe we will just have to try it out on a few generic resolutions (users can always click on the FA anyway). --Green Dragon (talk) 09:39, 5 March 2018 (MST)

Would requiring FAs to use internal images solve the issue with external images not displaying?--GamerAim (talk) 13:53, 5 March 2018 (MST)

The internal images work, so yes, but for now we can just not include an image if it is externally hosted. --Green Dragon (talk) 23:01, 5 March 2018 (MST)

Random Featured Article Link on FA's

When the Random Featured Article link was added to FA', I shortly blanked User:Blobby383b/WIP/10 or User:Blobby383b/WIP/10 thinking a new page had been created that was a copy of what I did. Several hours later I noticed the front page lacked the random featured article link, so I undid my edit and it appeared again. While I don't currently know whether it still uses it, if it does I believe my WIP page should be moved to something along the lines of Template:Random Featured Article or whatever is deemed appropriate and the link to the random featured articles updated.--Blobby383b (talk) 10:43, 5 April 2018 (MDT)

I just tested it again and it does indeed still link to my WIP page.--Blobby383b (talk) 10:47, 5 April 2018 (MDT)

I moved your userpage, and updated the link. Thanks for the information. --Green Dragon (talk) 22:45, 5 April 2018 (MDT)

Yep, I asked because I just recently noticed the issue again when the earth giant was added to the FA's and I thought "The FA's on the wiki shouldn't rely on a userpage of all things to update the FA's on the wiki". Even though it doesn't make any difference in how it appears, thanks for moving it.--Blobby383b (talk) 22:58, 5 April 2018 (MDT)

Featured Articles and Lists

To follow on from my suggestion on the talk page, regarding frontloading high quality content, should we put the FAs at the top of a list page? I'm also wondering if and how we can handle FAs for shorter pages. For example, a piece of equipment isn't big and flashy like a race or class - maybe only a few sentences - but it might be well-written and mechanically solid. We could bundle together several related pieces of equipment (or feats, boons, etc) as a single FA. Marasmusine (talk) 05:41, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

And I imagin in regards to more distinct pages like the Hate Bolt (5e Equipment) or Lloth's Glaive (5e Equipment) a singular FA would be suitable?

I recommend to call these pages "quality articles". I suggest that the "quality articles" have a criteria to fulfill, and that each of these pages may be reviewed if their "quality" is brought into focus. The absolute top pages will still be the "featured articles", and would be handled differently (with an extensive nomination, multiple contributors chiming in, etc). Quality articles would be, inherently, an index of pages that meet a common criteria. --Green Dragon (talk) 06:35, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

That sounds fine. To keep things simple, could quality articles still be nominated under the FA system? It can be determined during the review if it is to be a FA or QA. Marasmusine (talk) 06:51, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

What about placeing those shorter articles into something like the D&D wiki magazine? Only pitfall I see is that project doesn't look desirable to anyone.

I am also curious what would be the difference between FAs and QAs? Just a balanced page, without all the flavor, fluff, and fotos? If the standard is the same, why a seperate category? That's rhetorical though, just providing a thought to think over when outlining criteria for QAs. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 10:37, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

QAs are pages that we would want to represent the wiki, that aren't "fancy" enough to be FAs on the front page. Likely candidates are equipment, feats, rewards: they don't need any fluff or images. When a reader goes to look at feats, I'd like them to see the list of QA feats first rather than the hit-and-miss tombola that is the general list. Marasmusine (talk) 11:25, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

I'm all good with these suggestions - The only issue is that to do this, we're going to have to revamp every list page ever. There might just be an obscure orderby= paramater that'll do it, but worst-case we'll need a new table and new categories and notcategory= on every DPL ever. That's a lotta work. --SgtLion (talk) 12:45, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

I would also like to add that there should be a eloquent way for users to submit their content for QA, the FA process is more formal but what about QA's? --ConcealedLight (talk) 12:56, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

We just take the new lists step at a time as things get accepted for QA. It doesn't take that long to adjust the DPLs for one page. Marasmusine (talk) 13:13, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

No probalo. I'd like to say that I'm way in favour of the QA idea, and I also like the idea about making a cut-and-dry process for people to put content forward for QA status. Myself and my bot are available in any and all capacities to help with this. --SgtLion (talk) 13:18, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

Regarding the QA process, I imagine a much shorter turnaround as there's less to go through. Now some pages might be super-quick, as they do not have controversial content I've volunteered Lumberjack's Pack (5e Equipment) as a test page for the process - as far as I can tell, there are no typos, there's no mechanics other than cost and weight. It can go straight in a game. What might it need? An introductory sentence, maybe, although it speaks for itself and the PHB packs have no such description.

Feats and magic items will require more discussion. Some are work mechanically and might have good writing but don't fit the philosophy behind 5e. I would hope that anyone that's read the UA articles on these topics has a feel for what is right. Marasmusine (talk) 15:00, 20 April 2018 (MDT)

I find that your example is too complicated. I suggest that Quality Articles have a very simple criteria. For me, this means nothing more than that the pages (1) add something to the game, (2) are grammatically usable, (3) have complete mechanics, and (4) do not have any part that may require a maintenance template. If a page is nominated as a Quality Article, then without any opposing discussion after 1 week the status is granted to the page. --Green Dragon (talk) 09:54, 21 April 2018 (MDT)

Well there's a small difference there with my position that QA pages should meet the WotC "5e philosophy", but I can take that up on a case-by-case basis. Marasmusine (talk) 10:58, 21 April 2018 (MDT)

Well change (3) to that then, since it covers the same base. Of course the criteria needs to be totally understandable so that there are no holes in your idea. --Green Dragon (talk) 11:03, 21 April 2018 (MDT)

If 5e philosophy based on UA is going to be criterium vs core rulebooks solely, then could there be a page that goes over this or links to these articles. It would help those seeking to contribute/suggest QAs and homebrew creations in general by knowing WotC thoughts and also deter potential disagreements or end those disagreements much quicker. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 12:17, 21 April 2018 (MDT)

I don't know if we've kept up on it, but we have links to UA articles, for example at the bottom of 5e Feats. We've got plenty of guideline pages too. It's not always UA though, some of it you intuit from the core books. For example, I don't know if it explicitly states anywhere that 5e replaced most stacking bonuses with the advantage mechanic. Same with a minimum class level/rarity for introducing spells. Marasmusine (talk) 05:54, 23 April 2018 (MDT)

Coming back to the QA experiment, Lumberjack's Pack (5e Equipment), it's been a week now with no objections. Per GDs suggestion, I'll now move it a QA. I'll nominate some more equipment pages so we can populate the QA list. Marasmusine (talk) 07:55, 28 April 2018 (MDT)

I like this. I assume QA is fair game for content of all editions? 'cause I've got a few 3.5e and Pathfinders that I think would be appropriate. I do think we should just outline the simple nomination process clearly on this page - I'll do that later if nobody else do. --SgtLion (talk) 16:42, 28 April 2018 (MDT)

Go ahead, so long as you're prepared to make the changes to the index page. I'm not 100% sure how to present this yet (see 5e Adventuring Gear), particularly where we've made a lot of sub-categories. Marasmusine (talk) 10:18, 24 May 2018 (MDT)

Nominating Articles Before They Qualify?

There's been some dispute between myself and another user (who can name himself if he chooses to respond here) over whether nominating articles that don't immediately qualify for FA should be allowed. The rules as written suggest that this should not be allowed. But I believe that the rules as intended, backed by some precedent, allow for this. If I'm the only one who feels that way, so be it. But I'd like to make sure our FA rules are up-to-date either way :) --GamerAim (talk) 10:10, 24 May 2018 (MDT)

This has been a long standing issue of mine that I’ve always been quiet on because it almost seems no article is ever truly ready at the time of nomination. It would be my recommendation that the criteria be changed to reflect the practice the community currently follows. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 12:12, 24 May 2018 (MDT)

As said above, practically no nominated FA fills all the categories at the time of nomination. Nomination itself is a process to ensure an article meets all criteria, and makes edits to that effect. Rules as written should change. --SgtLion (talk) 15:48, 24 May 2018 (MDT)

April Fools FA Qualifications

Another dispute I'm having with some users is on how April Fools FAs (that is, FA nominations with the April Fools template) should be judged. I believe that they should be judged the same as any other page. Whether you find the page funny should not matter as much as how usable and well-written the page is. Humor, IME, is more subjective than balance or quality of writing. Others believe that the humor of an AF page is the most important thing that should be considered. I believe that this, aside from being highly subjective, poses certain pages at a disadvantage. There are some AF pages which are not particularly funny, but have been flagged as AF for containing "unusual" content or themes. This includes such pages as McChicken (5e Race), which I and others do not find "funny" but which contains content that might be too silly to be included in more "serious" games.--GamerAim (talk) 10:39, 24 May 2018 (MDT)

I’m torn on this topic because while yes, I think AF articles should be reviewed the same, I don’t think they belong in category of content we as a community want to be considered for any table. At least, that’s the sort of discussion I interpreted by other users. FA and QA would be locked pages that are marked and anyone viewing this site knows it to be trusted content suitable for any campaign. The McChiken sort of fits that role that yes it’s flavorful and appropriate power levels, but not quite what we advertise?? Look forward to others’ thoughts though. Cheers! BigShotFancyMan (talk) 12:20, 24 May 2018 (MDT)

I see no compelling reason why AF pages should be treated with any less regard as FA noms than any other pages. As long as it meets criteria, there should be no issue. --SgtLion (talk) 15:48, 24 May 2018 (MDT)

Less Vague Criteria

Right now, the criteria for a featured article are defined by the voter: the reason why someone believes an article should be featured may be the exact same reason why someone else would believe it shouldn't. I.E, someone may nominate an april fools page for featured article, due to it being a particularly funny april fools article, while someone else believes the fact that its an april fools article should immediately disqualift. Instead, there should be more specifically defined criteria for what does or does not disqualify a Featured Article. The vote would then not be based off of what ill-defined criteria each individual member of the community believes it should follow, but rather whether or not it meets already defined criteria.

As topics of discussion:

• Does an article need fluff to be a featured article? Surely it should if it's a race or a class, but what about a feat or a subclass?
• Should a very small page such as one for a feat even be allowed to be featured? If so, should there be an equivalent to featured articles for these very small pages?
• Can an article be nominated due to its usage of new or unconventional mechanics? Or should all featured articles follow convention perfectly? If it uses unconventional mechanics, should it be more important to also include a design disclaimer even under circumstances where a non-FA nominee could get away without? I imagine that even if we allow unconventional mechanics, they should still ultimately follow the core design philosophies of that particular edition of D&D.
• Should an April Fools article be judged for its humor and/or how usable it is in game? Or should its in-game usability not matter? Should April Fools articles even be allowed to be featured?
• How "petty" can a person's reasons be for opposing an FA nomination? As brought up on Green Dragon's talk page, people have opposed FAs for having "too much lore" or "the race's name is hard to pronounce" and there's been complaints about these reasons.

Varkarrus (talk) 14:00, 2 August 2018 (MDT)

Here's my proposal for additional Featured Article Criteria. Do note that these are all my opinions and aren't necessarily the objectively best possible criteria.

1) Lore

• Races require a significant amount of lore to qualify: at least enough material to provide a launchpad for dungeon masters. Society, government, location, traditions, history, cultural values, and appearance are all important. The exception is if the race is based off of an existing creature from D&D, in which case lore is only needed to cover the bases that aren't officially covered by D&D. I.E, not much needs to be written about a homebrew Xvart or Modron race.
• Classes and subclasses do not require as much lore, but should have multiple examples of concepts to base a character off of. I.E, a hypothetical magic-using class that draws its power from the stars / moon should give backstory suggestions to the player: a scholarly mage who attended a prodigious school, a member of an illegal cult that worships the stars, or a hermit who is attuned to the night sky.
• Feats should do as classes and subclasses do, and give at least one suggestion as to how the PC acquires the feat.
• Creatures require at least a few paragraphs of lore. Depending on the creature, their behavior, diet, physiology... or creation or summoning... should be detailed.
• Items require at least a bit of lore. Artifacts moreso.
• A page can be rejected for having too little lore, or for having low quality / nonsensical lore. A page should not be rejected for having "too much" lore, but lore that is excessively wordy counts as poorly written.

2) Mechanics (For 5e, at least)

• Ultimately, mechanics should be balanced. They should not break cardinal rules of D&D 5e, i.e: no raising ability scores past 30 or granting positive or negative modifiers to rolls aside from advantage or disadvantage. Proper terminology should be used.
• The page should fit D&D 5e mechanical design philosophies. There should be few (or ideally, no) unviable race and class combinations, even if especially because it gives rise to halfling barbarians or orc bards. Use of existing 5e mechanics should use consistent terminology.
• New and unconventional mechanics can be created that are not used in 5e, as long as they follow the overall 5e design philosophies. Mechanics should be kept simple, even if it leaves room for different interpretations. If they are something not yet done before in vanilla 5e that may throw a DM off, a design disclaimer should be used, even in places where a non-featured article could get away without one. Otherwise, 5e's design philosophy preaches flexibility as a major selling point, and a page should not be discredited for it.
• Older versions of D&D use different design philosophies, so different rulings may be necessary there.

3) April Fools

• Ultimately, an April Fools article should be judged for its humor. A page that is meant to be judged for its mechanics and usability in-game should not be an April Fools article, regardless of how silly it otherwise is.

4) Subjective VS Objective quality

• Do not oppose a featured article solely because it doesn't appeal to you. If the page meets all of the FA criteria, you are under no obligation to support the nomination, but opposing it just because it doesn't personally stand out to you could potentially mean an article a lot of people like doesn't make it as a featured article. That said, objectively poorly written lore is grounds for opposing an article's nomination.

5) Article Length

• Ultimately, all types of articles should be able to be featured articles, but for certain types of articles (feats, subclasses, items...), depending on the concept, it may be very difficult to write enough words for it to qualify without actively harming the quality of the article. That said, it would be unpleasant to flood the front page slideshow with dozens of quickly written (if still quality) feats or simple magic items. As a proposal, perhaps only articles of a certain word count can be on the front page slideshow.

Varkarrus (talk) 19:59, 5 August 2018 (MDT)

I find your approach appealing. There is just one thing we should add, which is that smaller pages (like feats, spells, simpler equipment) should not be nominated as featured articles. They may become quality articles (if this really will be a thing).

This approach also covers a lot of the problems with the featured article process right now. I feel that it will push the current nominees (and future ones too) into a conclusion. --Green Dragon (talk) 23:23, 5 August 2018 (MDT)

How should the criteria be different for quality articles vs featured ones? I feel like smaller pages should universally be quality articles while longer pages be featured articles; the length being the only distinction between them. Otherwise, this sets up the possibility that quality articles are considered a lower "tier," like a race or a class fails as a featured article but becomes a quality article, and that can get complicated. Varkarrus (talk) 09:29, 6 August 2018 (MDT)

I agree with GD. This is well written and I look forward to this being appended to the FA criteria. Though for clarity while all April Fools pages that wish to be Featured Articles are judged for their humor(a subjective thing) I believe to give some more solidarity to such a process they should also abide by all other rules a normal nomination should abide by. For example, I think the Shadow Vampire Dracoelf(or whatever the name for the monstrosity is) is hilarious, however, it is in no way functional, balanced or eloquent. —ConcealedLight (talk) 04:50, 6 August 2018 (MDT)

I disagree. I think the Vampiric Dark Lord Blooddragonelf page is hilarious and I would TOTALLY nominate it as a featured article... but only after the D&Dwiki reputation gets cleaned up a bit. I don't want outsiders to see it and get the wrong idea. Varkarrus (talk) 09:29, 6 August 2018 (MDT)

I don't think this solves issues of bias. TL;DR (for you GA lol) - work with what is there, not redo

• 1. Lore- can still be opposed by not enough lore. The current sentence/paragraph amount is consistently deemed not enough (more on that later) so I do not see what would be to stop this, esp if users CAN'T oppose for too much lore (more on that too). In addition, not everyone is a writer. I think it is appropriate articles have some decent amount of reading to accompany the creation, but demanding a term paper is over the top. I recommend listing the areas to discuss, and that 3 subjects should be written. It helps provide the talking points and sets a standard for users to shoot for. "Choose 3 from the following to write lore on. A minimum of 5 sentences is required to be considered." IDEAS!
• 2. Flexibility is a termed used to define inclusivity, not muddy the game with benefits hard to understand. That said, I think mechanics are one of the easiest areas to evaluate.
• 3. Similar to 1. Lore, a user could still oppose because they don't find it funny enough, which has happened. There is definitely opposing opinions on what justifies April Fool's posts and I do not agree that it has to be funny. Limiting it to having to be funny again restricts voting considerations.
• 4. The only reason I don't like this point is it telling users they CAN'T vote. Similar to point 1. Lore-they can't oppose because there is too much lore. We are removing the freedom and liberty of users to express themselves as they choose during a voting process. I personally exercise not opposing because of a personal dislike but it isn't a belief or moral I'd wish to force others to subscribe to simply because its not right (in my book)
• 5. Article length ties to 1. Lore-I am going to understand that a word count was a suggestion, and rather than refute I reiterate what I said before about sentences.

I mentioned on Discord I believe the current criteria to be designed to last, not account for every issue to arise during the nomination process. I am so happy to see someone brave enough to speak their mind about a decade old process and don't mean to discourage with my opposition. The system is flawed. But the system is also very open for users. I think if we build on what exists versus rewriting the rules, a healthier process will come to life.

example-beating a dead horse at the moment and I apologize: Increase the minimum amount of writing to be done instead of it being only 3 sentences. I don't think we need to list how many words are required, it funnels a legalist approach to this. As voters, I think they SHOULD have the power to decide, "eh those sentences are skimpy, "I want moar loooore"".

another-variant rules needs cleaned up or added to. With the current Dullahan, a mechanics thing is in question and I feel that the 3 points of variant rules apply to the races core traits. Features/traits/etc aka "benefits" should be understandable and eloquent. When a user opposes an article because of unconventional mechanics or is not in favor of the article, I think these points should considered by all users nominating and evaluating an article.

Again, way to spur the discussion. I hope I don't come off as just shooting down the ideas. I want to ensure if something is changed, it is for the better or doesn't keep the same issues. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to remove bias without creating a legalist system, governed by overbearing users. (I am not accusing anyone of this, hypothetically speaking on how to remove bias from the voting). I also hope this discussion doesn't create changes over night. I request that the topic stay open for a month before something is done. Some users with great insight aren't always available. Would love a chance for them to input. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 08:09, 6 August 2018 (MDT)

I totally, strongly, and intensely disagree on "maximum amount of lore." If a person decides to write an entire novel's worth of lore for their race, so be it. That doesn't detract from the quality of the race, it instead provides a fracking heckton of material for dungeon masters to OPTIONALLY use. There are certainly copyright homebrew races, purchasable online in PDF format, that are several pages long... and if they were articles on D&D wiki instead they absolutely should be acceptable as featured articles... As for flexibility being related to inclusiveness... no, it's not. D&D 5e was explicitly designed with mechanical flexibility in mind; leaving the rules up to interpretation in a lot of cases. As Mike Mearls said, ["We found that many people in the audience wanted a fast, flexible, and easy-to-play game. [...] Even people who loved 4e’s depth were interested in seeing a fast, simple core that they could expand to include deep combat when they wanted it."|http://www.unboundworlds.com/2014/07/interview-with-dd-lead-designer-mike-mearls-gamers-wanted-5e-to-be-fast-flexible-and-easy-to-play/]. Finally, the mechanics for the Dullahan's head really aren't that elaborate when you look at it, but that's a discussion for that page's talk page, not here. Varkarrus (talk) 09:29, 6 August 2018 (MDT)

So overall this isn't bad. Seems like standard stuff to me. My first issue is that you'll never get consensus on April Fool's Day. We can't even agree on when it should be applied. Is it only applied when the OP thinks it should be, or whenever someone who isn't the OP thinks it should be? Some people find certain things sillier than others. Some AFD articles are mechanically bad, but funny. Some are mechanically good and not funny. And it largely depends on how you theme it, too. Ochille's Heels (5e Equipment) could be viewed by some as silly, as the name is a pun and it was originally a reference to the heelies shoes (I don't remember why I renamed it). The lore is intentionally silly as well, but I don't think it's AFD silly.

So yeah, we can't even agree on that, we won't agree on this. I think the easiest route is to just ignore design disclaimers and AFD templates. I'm fine making some funny broken pages FA as special exceptions, but you first ask to make standardized procedure to be as objective as possible, then you want to make a special exception for that where people are as subjective as possible and it only applies to articles that we as a user base can't decide qualify.

Secondly, I think if a page has too much lore, it isn't a usable page. If you have to wade through the race's favorite color of spoon, it isn't accessible or convenient for players and GMs. If you want to write a novel's worth of material, write a novel and not a D&D Wiki article. Adapt to the medium, write what players and DMs might realistically find useful.

Finally, D&D Wiki's reputation is unlikely to ever be great for the simple reason that D&D Wiki hasn't really done anything wrong. People dislike the way we operate on a fundamental level. They dislike what we stand for. They don't agree with our existence. I'm all for doing what we can to improve, but we can't pander to reddit and remain D&D Wiki at the same time. For so long as we don't gatekeep and rigidly curate or content (or, conversely, allow absolutely everything without moderation), people won't like us. Our policies should be based on whether our "reputation" has improved or not.

So, is the FA system for usable pages or what? :) --GamerAim (talk) 14:25, 6 August 2018 (MDT)

Yes, the pages need to be curated to D&D. We could even list the title of this process "Featured Article Curation", but we really need a set list of criteria for this process to be successful.

It seems really great that everyone seems to agree that a more elaborate curation process is taking the right direction.

It seems that we are hanging on the lore and April Fools curation. I think that the discussion up until this point has provided enough information to amend the lore curation.

For April Fools pages I recommend adding a clause that, when a user does not find the april fools pages humorous, they can place a direct vote with their opinion on the nomination. --Green Dragon (talk) 23:33, 13 August 2018 (MDT)

Can you elaborate on that third point? To be honest I'm not 100% sure what you mean, there.

Either way, I'm glad this sounds like we're getting the new FA criteria! Varkarrus (talk) 06:40, 14 August 2018 (MDT)

As far as amending lore curation, I'd like to re-suggest an article has 3 out of "x" amount of subjects, and each subject has a minimum of....10? sentences. If more than 3 subjects are used, leniency should be given on the length of a subject.

A little reasoning why I think NOT requiring more than 3 subjects is that the task could become daunting. Even 10 sentences could do this for someone. It seems simple for some active users, but not everyone is a writer. But if D&D Wiki wants tougher criteria for its elite articles, then I must obliged. Shared thought-I'd like to see articles from multiple users and guidelines that "favor" better writers might prevent that. Not saying this concern should dictate wiki criteria. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 12:55, 14 August 2018 (MDT)

Giving examples for pages sounds like a good idea. Mechanically speaking I believe the Earth Giant (5e Race) is a good example of a traditionally taboo mechanic(Large size) that is done in a way that is ultimately balanced. It is also a good example of racial lore that builds upon the first party's giant lore in a way that doesn't disrupt it and defines the race's place with the greater race of giants. —ConcealedLight (talk) 21:02, 14 August 2018 (MDT)

Finally, I think there should be a point in the lore section added about backgrounds as we do have the Slave (5e Background) and the Unknown (5e Background). They also serve as good lore rich pages for example purposes. —ConcealedLight (talk) 21:02, 14 August 2018 (MDT)

Quality Articles

Perhaps there should be a list of QAs by the Quality Article Nomination section. SirSprinkles (talk) 16:07, 16 September 2018 (MDT)

That's reasonable. --Green Dragon (talk) 23:25, 16 September 2018 (MDT)

Speaking of Quality Articles, the Variant Figurines of Wondrous Power (5e Equipment) page has been nominated for Quality Article status and has had consensus that it should be made into a Quality Article for several months. I think it should be made into a full QA and that the other QA nominees should be either made into QAs or rejected for now. SirSprinkles (talk) 00:47, 17 September 2018 (MDT)

Yes, of course. Once concensus has been reached the pages should succeed. --Green Dragon (talk) 08:57, 17 September 2018 (MDT)

Placement in the News

I am curious if the wiki has any history posting such articles to the news page? I do not wish to share every one of them, but those that are close to discussion ending and have no discussion or a consensus isn't clear. These articles don't populate on any watch list, even if you have D&D Wiki:Featured Articles on your watch list.
Related note, perhaps announcing every nominee on the news page would help bring attention to this part of the wiki since the only way to know articles have nominated is to routinely check this page, unless the article is already on your watchlist.
Another idea is a topic on this page to announce newly nominated pages, or ones with expiration times approaching. (or in the even of Valiant (5e Feat), expired) thanks for any and everyone's time. ~ BigShotFancyMan (talk) 10:33, 7 December 2018 (MST)

Introductions

I am curious what is the point of doing them? They aren't linked on the FA page, or any page for that matter, and a user asked if it was a remnant of a page. They just.....exist.   ~BigShotFancyMan   talk   14:34, 11 September 2019 (MDT)

They're transcluded on the slideshow on the main page, which is something, I guess? — Geodude (talk | contribs | email)‎‎ . . 14:41, 11 September 2019 (MDT)

Fair Enough.   ~BigShotFancyMan   talk   10:05, 12 September 2019 (MDT)

What other use where you thinking of? Should they all be linked to from somewhere? I just can't think of where. --Green Dragon (talk) 12:03, 12 September 2019 (MDT)

I was not thinking of an additional use for them. I didn't know they are used for the Main Page FA thing. Otherwise, I didn't know why they were being created or existed. I get it now though.   ~BigShotFancyMan   talk   12:27, 12 September 2019 (MDT)