Wikipedia:Article half-life

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
featured article will be subjected to vandalism, unhelpful edits, and link rot, which will eventually reduce its quality in a manner similar to radioactive decay
.

Congratulations! You just wrote a sweet article on...

featured article
some day.

That's not enough. You see, every article has a half-life.

The phrase "Half-life" describes the time it takes for a substance to degrade to half its former quantity. The term is most often used within the context of radioactive decay.

Over time,

good article, and then into a poor quality article which then will require serious cleanup
and improvement work.

The half-life for every article is different, but every article, no matter what the quality, will eventually degrade.

Often, the big edits like

wikilink
, or a careless user adds incorrect information interspersed with correct additions. These edits add up surprisingly quickly.

Remember that the long-term quality of an article depends on your continued effort to update and cleanup over time, not just the initial effort. Keep an eye on articles through your

watch list
and periodically review them, and while you are there, prune out OR and vandalism and remove unsourced quotations and biased POV additions.

See also