Wookieepedia:Featured articles/Essay

FA Writing Machines
The FA Writing Machines are a group of users that expand articles at a rapid rate, effectively making certain topics "complete" in their coverage and therefore "FA-worthy". A user does not need to apply to be in this group, they simply are or are not in this group. As a user and admin of Wookieepedia, I fully respect FA-machines, and try to better my own writing and contributions by "tracking" these users and admiring their work. I'm not entirely sure how the "movement" of FA Writing Machines occurred, but I do want to write down a rather egotistical "history" of the FA Writing Machine movement.

Origins
In my mind, the first FA Writing Machine was QuentinGeorge. He was the first user to grab a topic and try to make it complete as possible. Although his standard of completeness might not hold up today, he's still the forebear&mdash;if you will&mdash;of the FA-machine movement. Another forebear of this movement deserving of mention is Erik Pflueger. An established author in his own right, his standard of completeness is still mind boggling, and in the early days of the wiki, this factor made him admired by many wookieepedians.

The articles that make these two users the effective founders of this movement instead of just users with a concentrated interest are Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dooku, Lumiya, Darth Bane, Beilert Valance, and Palpatine with the last two being attributed to Pflueger. Keep in mind that these articles have changed dramatically since they were put on the queue, and although their work may be overwritten, this spirit of expansion is what started this movement.

A Movement?
The next stage in the progression of the FA Writing Machine movement was the "recruitment" stage. Now by recruitment, I don't mean that Erik or Quentin went and found users to do the same kind of work they were doing. Instead I mean that certain other users saw just how great a tool the Wooki could be to lay down an expansive relation of a character or event. How they came to this epiphany could have been through seeing the kind of work that Quentin and Erik had been doing, or it could have been just through a revelation of their own. In any case, still in the early days of Wookieepedia, new users were joining this movement of contributing solely to create the most complete "FA-worthy" article they could.

Users I like to use as examples of this "time period" are Darth Culator, Kuralyov, MarcK and CooperTFN. I had also latched myself onto this movement around this point but was literally blown away with Culator's Zsinj article, and Cooper's Booster Terrik. I wanted to do the same kind of work, but was incredibly hesitant. I wasn't ready for people to "judge" my work, as the process through the FA nomination requires. The articles written by these users such as Ulic Qel-Droma, Exar Kun, Naga Sadow, Stark Hyperspace War, Galactic Republic Chancery election, 32 BBY, Vuffi Raa, and the aforementioned Zsinj and Terrik brought the FA Writing process to a whole new level.

Upslope
After this sudden rise of FA Writing Machines, the ranks began to swell considerably. Users such as myself (Adalric Cessius Brandl), Eyrezer (Empire Reborn), Lord Hydronium (Pre-Republic era), Breathesgelatin (Quinlan Vos), Kevinmhk (Freedon Nadd), and StarNeptune (Ta'a Chume) were all creating expansive articles, the likes of which I put in parentheses. Unfortunately, a lull was on the horizon. Culator had apparently been burned out from writing Zsinj and hasn't taken on anything major since. Cooper was apparently satisfied with his articles and all but left the Wiki. Kuralyov became concerned with other factors in the Star Wars continuity and relegated himself to creating stubs and new articles at an insane rate. MarcK completely disappeared. However, near the end of 2006, Volemlock (Gamorrean) and Atarumaster88 (Second Battle of Borleias (Yuuzhan Vong War)) seemed to have joined the movement.

Pushing forward
Although several of the first FA Writing Machines had disappeared, the movement continued under the headway of Eyrezer, Lord Hydronium, and (beating my own drum here) myself. For the first four months of 2007, we three had written almost half of the FAs on the front page. This was another exciting time for the FA Writing Machines movement, as the ranks began to swell again. Havac (Brenn Tantor), Green Tentacle (Bria Tharen), and Thefourdotelipsis (Rune Haako) all "joined" around the same time. The movement began to be working at an all time high, and FA Writing Machines were responsible for almost all of the FAs at this point. With such a huge boost in these types of users, I felt as though if we really tried we could put 52 articles (a years worth) onto the Queue. My faith in the movement was confirmed when on May 10, 2007 we reached that number.

The strength of the movement began to attract new users including Solus (Padmé Amidala's wardrobe) and Sarendipity (Ebon Hawk), who helped reach 52.

Persecution?
The FA Writing Machine Movement reached a snag when the community began to protest the actions of FA-machines. Certain topics tackled by FA-machines began to garner heavy criticism. The Inquisitorius, made up of mostly current FA-machines, began to take flak as well for stripping past FAs (from the likes of the earliest FA machines) of their featured status. The speed of the FA-machines began to take hits, as the number of articles on the queue was seen unruly by some. One of the foremost FA-machines at the time, thefourdotelipsis, was hit with heavy criticism for believing and proving that any topic could be an FA. Articles such as Jon (farmer) and Burl Ives were seen as unworthy FA topics by some. After trying to push another controversial topic in the Tumble bunny trainer to FA and proving less than successful, his FA writing slowed to a halt, and the movement with it.

Mega Articles era
However, just as before, the movement was not to be stopped, and although the quickest FA-machine was on hiatus, the movement continued. Havac and Green tentacle took the lead, writing monster articles of the likes of Jerec, Voss Parck, Guri, and Keyan Farlander. Around this time, the monster queue we had assembled had become almost unreasonable. We were nearly to 2 years of articles. Articles just becoming FAs at this point wouldn't see the front page until almost two years later. To prevent this, and due to a fear that these FAs would fall into disrepair such a long period, the amount of time for articles to remain on the front page was changed. Now instead of one article being featured per week, it was changed to two articles being featured per week, with each article having its picture shown for half the week. However, this could not stem the influx of FAs and FA machines. Jorrel Fraajic (XJ-6 airspeeder), Chack Jadson (501st legion), Goodwood (Starfighter combat), Harrar (Harrar), Ozzel (Shadows of the Empire (soundtrack)), and Imperialles (Durge) all wrote their first FAs around this point. Greyman (Arca Jeth), in the same vein as GT and Havac, was writing absolutely monstrous articles such as Wes Janson. Special mention needs to be given to Greyman and Atarumaster88's expansion of Mara Jade Skywalker, making it the longest FA on the site. Greyman's addition would also mark the beginning of one of the most successful FA movements on the site. The project, an effort to expand subjects relating to the Tales of the Jedi comic books was incredibly successful. Currently, over 20 FAs have come out of the project.

As well as upping our count of FAs, it also brought in new FA-machines. AdmirableAckbar (Ephant Mon) and Graestan (Crado) would both hit their stride due to this project. Along with this movement, and the return of 4dot, even placing two FAs a week on the front page could not shorten the queue. By October 10th, 2007, we had pushed the queue back to a full year once again. Once again trying to regulate the queue, we adopted a system akin to Wikipedia in which one FA would be featured per day for 2009. Following this, the rate of FA creation has not ebbed much, but it has seen a dwindling in the amount of FA-machines present. Redemption, who had played a part in FAing Jarael months earlier, FAd the article, Raana Tey in early 2008, and Toprawa and Ralltiir (Wampa) also seemed to join the movement at this point. Now if only he would list his FAs on his page, so I could help categorize who has helped FA an article a bit better. Jedimasterfiolli (Star Map), who had helped FA Danni Quee with Atarumaster88, and had re-FAd Manaan, also showed his chops as an FA-machine at this point.

Future
At this point, we have over two months of articles ready for the FA a day transition in 2009. Whether we will be able to sustain such a rate of turnover remains to be seen. A special mention needs to be given to the good articles. While not as prestigious as featured articles, our current crop of FA-machines all had their start writing GAs. It's a great way to transition into writing for the Wooki, and hopefully a new group of FA-quality editors will spring from those that have begun to write good articles.

At a Glance

 * Yes, I am rounding
 * If the article was later removed, I just went with the value that it was at when it first went through the FA process.
 * Some of these were group projects. Although I'd like to just go with the person who wrote the majority of it...that might take some time to figure out.
 * I don't know