Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-03-31/Dispatches
Dispatches: Featured content overview
One of the holy grails of contributing to Wikipedia is writing a
Featured pictures
- See candidates, peer review and picture of the day
Featured pictures represent the most encyclopedic images Wikipedia has to offer. This is not the same as featured pictures on Commons, which aims to select what is best described as the prettiest pictures. Wikipedia featured pictures should also be of the highest technical quality possible.
Any freely licensed picture is eligible for featured status, however minimum size requirements are enforced for static media. Video files can be nominated for featured picture status, because they are considered to be moving pictures (hence the word movie). To become a featured picture, an image must meet the featured picture criteria and obtain consensus for promotion at Featured picture candidates in roughly seven days. There are currently 1163 featured pictures, approximately 0.04% of the eligible pictures that are here and on Commons. In comparison, there are 6520 featured articles.
Featured pictures are displayed on the Main Page as picture of the day (POTD) under the section "Today's featured picture". Commons also runs a POTD.
Pictures also have a good article equivalent on Commons, called Quality images. However, eligibility is restricted to photos taken by Wikimedians. Additionally, Valued images (not yet stable) aims to find the most encyclopedic images without putting too much emphasis on pretty pictures.
Pictures have their own peer review process at
- Examples
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View from the Window at Le Gras, by Nicéphore Niépce - the earliest surviving photograph
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Hoverflies mating in midair, by Fir0002
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Killing of "suspected Iraqi insurgents", by theUS Department of Defense
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Steam turbine, by Siemens Pressebild
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USS Shaw exploding during the attack on Pearl Harbor, by US Department of Defense
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Saint Peter's Square, by Diliff
Featured lists
- See candidates and peer review
We intuitively know what a list is. A featured list is one that enumerates articles whose subjects satisfy a
Lists are not eligible for
Various proposals relating to a "today's featured list" item on the Main Page have been made, some of which would require the appointment of a featured list director (for example Today's featured list proposal, another featured list proposal and List of the day), but discussion appears stalled.
Lists go through the same peer review process as articles.
- Examples
- List of snow events in Florida
- List of Indonesian volcanoes
- List of English words containing Q not followed by U
- List of molecules in interstellar space
- List of countries without armed forces
Featured portals
- See candidates and peer review
A portal serves as a miniature version of the Main Page for a broad subject area. Featured portals showcase Wikipedia's best content in that subject, although such content need not be featured. They should also be aesthetically pleasing, ergonomic, well-maintained and encourage contributions in the subject area per the featured portal criteria. Portals must also obtain consensus for promotion at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates in order to be featured. There are currently {{Featured portals number}}
featured portals, comprising approximately 20% of the total portal population.
Besides featured articles, whose director is
Portals have their own peer review process.
- Examples
- Amusement parks portal
- Library and information science portal
- Business and economics portal
- Photography portal
- Physics portal
Featured topics
- See candidates
This is fairly self-explanatory – a featured topic is a set of exemplary articles that are somehow related. However, there is no glossing over the puny little stub on a subject that is a major part of the topic – all articles should be
There is no such thing as "topic peer review"; individual articles can be reviewed at peer review.
- Examples
Featured sounds
- See candidates
The newest of the featured content processes, featured sounds, aims to highlight the most encyclopedic audio recordings. Any freely licensed audio file that is not a spoken article is eligible for nomination at Featured sound candidates, where it is checked against the featured sound criteria. Unfortunately, the featured sound process currently suffers from a lack of participation and nomination periods are lengthy. There are currently 14 featured sounds.
A media file, usually a sound (but usually not a featured sound), appears on the Commons Main Page as Media of the day. However, there is no featured sound designation on Commons – MOTDs are simply repeated each year unless someone changes them.
There is currently no specialized peer review venue for sounds.
- Examples
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"One small step for (a) man...", by Neil Armstrong
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First movement, Spring, ofVivaldi's Four Seasons, by John Harrison
Discuss this story
Suggestion
For clarity, rather than using the main and see also templates, which generate long lists, how about using the same (standardized) format list for each different content type to include: the content page, the criteria page, the candidate page, and the peer review page. Like this:
It's shorter, standardized, and puts everything readers need about each content type on one line. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Standardised format: done.
Featured articles: My original intention was to cover the non-article processes and compare them. I put a bit into the intro about FA, but 1) I'll miss the deadline if I wrote about it (I'm UTC +8), 2) it probably deserves its own item anyway or can be lumped in with the history of FA and 3) it's long enough already.
That said, I think it's ready for publication. MER-C 12:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]