Forum:SH Archive/Proposal for featured/good topics

Initial suggestion
Hey all, I used to edit here under a different name, and am back after a long period of inactivity. Since that time, I've started edited pretty frequently at Wikipedia, and I want to suggest the Wook adopt something that Wikipedia already uses: featured topics and good topics. (It was suggested I bring this idea here for feedback.)

FTs and GTs have some similarities to FAs and GAs, but instead of articles, they are collections of articles. Basically, a topic consists of a collection of inter-related articles of superior quality. Each FT or GT has one main article that describes the collection, plus other articles that are related to the main one.

The best way I can think to describe this is to simply show some examples from Wikipedia. Here you can see the South Park (season 13) good topic: the main article is the "season 13" article, and the other articles are episodes. Or, here you can see a Star-Wars related good topic, with "Star Wars: Jedi Knight titles" as the main article, and all the actual titles as the other articles.

The criteria for FTs/GTs are pretty simple: there be at least three distinct articles, they have a clear similarity and are linked together, and there are no obvious gaps or missing articles. At Wikipedia, a featured topic has at least one-third or one-half (the criteria is changing this month) FAs and the rest GAs; a good topic has all articles at least GAs.

Basically, the way it works is users come up with the proposed topics, and then they go through a review process, where the reviewers make sure the articles meet those requirements, and make sure nothing is missing. It's a pretty easy review process, really, because the criteria is clear-cut: you either qualify, or you don't. Once a consensus is reached and a certain period of time elapses, it passes or fails as GT or FT.

This differs from WookieeProjects because, while those encompass all articles of a certain type, these apply to a specific kind and require a certain quality designation. I can think of many possible Star Wars topics off the top of my head. For example, if articles for all members of the Max Rebo Band reached GA or FA, that could be a GT/RT with the band article itself as the main article. Or, if X-wing (novels) was the main topic subject, all the individual novels themselves would make up the rest of the topic.

Forgive my lengthy explanation, but I think FTs/GTs would be a perfect fit here at the Wook and, like FAs and GAs themselves, would help encourage contributors to make and develop articles of great quality. Any thoughts, questions, whatever?

— Hun ter Ka hn  02:30, September 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've actually been tossing this idea around in my head for quite a while now, and I definitely like it. We would just need to decide on our own criteria, but I think this would work. &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 03:44, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm really against this. Simply put, I don't see any sort of need for this. It's just something complex that really adds very little, IMO. We don't need to adopt everything Wikipedia does, after all.  Chack Jadson  (Talk) 16:35, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Completely unnecessary&mdash;any article we have that could become a "GT" or "FT" could just become a GA or FA. We have three well-organized pages for the purpose of pointing out all of our best articles; we don't need to point out that lots of articles about similar subjects are of high quality when we have those. What I want to know is: what's the big difference between a status "topic" and a status "article?" The only difference that I see is that, to take something to FT, I'm required to have taken all of the articles related to that "topic" up to status, too. That would be more harmful to the site than good; it's like saying that the Second Galactic Civil War article could never reach featured status until every single article relating to it was of status, or that Wraith Squadron couldn't be of status because we don't have all of the pilots and battles relating to the Wraiths as status articles. It would defer people from writing the larger articles, as opposed to engouraging them. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 17:03, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Per Chack. -- 1358  (Talk) 17:06, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * @Jujiggum: I think you're misunderstanding it. An article does not become an FT; a group of articles does. There's absolutely nothing that says a major article like Wraith Squadron can't be of FA status just because other related things aren't; FT/GT would just be a way to encourage users to write multiple related articles, ensuring that our coverage in one area is as good as possible. Also, the group of articles need not be as large as an entire major war; they could be just four or five closely related articles on a small campaign within that war. Conversely, a topic with a major war as its lead article need not include every single article related to the war, but instead could be an overview topic. This would in no way "defer people from writing the larger articles"; if they want to bring a large article like Second Galactic Civil War to FA, there's absolutely nothing stopping them. Whether or not they decide to write up other related articles and try to take the group of articles to FT/GT is up to them and is a completely separate matter. &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 17:33, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry for misunderstanding. In that case, we don't need to do this for just two reasons: 1: How would we decide what constitutes a full topic? Would the Galactic Alliance Security troopers I've written instantly be a full topic? I guess what I'm trying to ask is, so far I've written every known GAS trooper to status. Would make the Galactic Alliance Security troopers a Good Topic? Or would I have to write an "overview article" on Galactic Alliance Security troopers as a whole in order to bring them to GT? If I have to write an overview article, then I'm adding a pointless extra article on the site that has nothing to do with Star Wars canon itself. And if I don't, then what's the point of doing this at all? Which brings me to reason number 2: We already do basically do something quite similar to this. They're called WookieeProjects. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 17:44, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd like to address this. To your second point, GTs and FTS are really nothing like WookieeProjects. While a project encompasses all articles of a very broad range (aliens, main characters, etc.) a topic would address a very specific set of inter-related articles that have been worked up to FA or GA status. Like, for example, you could propose a GT for Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes and include that article as the "main" article and the remaining articles (Assuming they were all GA or FA) would be Doikk Na'ts, Ickabel G'ont, Tedn Dahai, Tech Mo'r, Nalan Cheel and Lirin Car'n. (An added benefit of topics is somebody might feel even more inclined than before to work those seven articles up to GA or FA status, with the hopes of eventually making a GT or FT out of them). Regarding your first point, a decision on what constitutes a complete topic is taken on a case-by-case basis. If the reviewers feel a topic is complete, that's that. If they don't, there will be a discussion about what's missing. It sounds like it could get potentially hairy, but it really doesn't. This is the same review process Wikipedia uses and it works fine there, and I would think at the Wook, it would actually be easier to come to a consensus on what constitutes topics, since the range of content is much more specific here than at Wikipedia... — Hunter Kahn  23:54, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, Jonjedigrandmaster, I wanted to address your question about Galactic Alliance Security. It appears to me that all the members (Wruq Retk, Savar, Oric Harfard, Atar, Xanda and Carn) are already GAs. If Galactic Alliance Security were brought up to GA, then yes, that would be instantly ready for Good Topic status, with Galactic Alliance Security as the main article, and the other six as the other articles. And, in the event a book would be published down the road introducing another GAS member, we could include a guideline that says somebody has 3, 6, 9, however many months to get that article up to GA, or else the GT is downgraded. Nice and simple. — Hunter Kahn  00:04, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I still see no point to this. If someone wanted to write the articles to status, then they'd get written anyway. In the GAS example: if all it takes to become a GT/FT is just writing the GAS article itself up to status, then it is absolutely no different than if I'd just decided to write the article as a GA/FA, and I see no point in having another set of statuses for articles that are almost exactly the same as the statuses we already use. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 00:54, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's just another way to recognize good content and encourage people who might otherwise have not been inspired to otherwise improve all the other articles. (I know FTs have gotten me to create GAs and FAs I otherwise would not have at Wikipedia.) There's certainly no obligation to participate if one personally doesn't care for the topic concept themselves. But I can see you're pretty set in your opinion, so I can respect that. — Hunter Kahn  01:15, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * Speaking as one of the foremost status article reviewers, I can say that there is an obligation to participate&hellip;for Inquisitors and AgriCorps members. Because this would deal with FAN and GANs, the responsibility would ultimately fall on us&mdash;and quite frankly, I'm not to enthused about shouldering an extra workload. While I speak for myself, I can almost bet that many of my fellow Inqs and ACs&mdash;Jonjedi included&mdash;would not be thrilled with the idea of yet another nomination process to oversee. —Tommy 9281 01:22, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that's something we still have to work out. Should ACs and Inqs be the ones to handle the GT/FT nomination page, or should the responsibility fall to the whole community? Personally, I'd go for the latter. It seems to me that the only thing that needs to actually be "reviewed" is whether a GT/FT nom has the required GAs/FAs to be given the status. That sounds pretty simple to me. If an article that's part of a GT/FT loses its status, then so does the GT/FT, so there's not even really a need to review them after they get their status. All of that is pretty much already done in the AC/Inq meetings when we're reviewing articles. What we would need is a few volunteers to handle stuff like archiving GT/FT nominations, creating a page for the topics, etc. But I don't think this would add any meaningful amount of workload to the Inqs/ACs, and as I said before, I would prefer that this kind of thing be handled by the whole community. Anyway, I'm interested in this idea and I'd love to hear more about it. Xicer9 atgar.svg( Combadge) 01:43, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask here. First of all, who would be the reviewers? I mean, the criteria to have a featured or good topic is clear cut, but someone has to decide which articles need to be included under a topic. For example, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi is currently a FA. Now, if I wanted to make this a featured or good topic, what would I need to include? The comic has thirty-five issues that involve eight story arcs. Who would decide what needs to be included? The current Inqs, Acs, and Ecs? Or would another group need to be created? Secondly, would it require that the same person brought all of the articles included under the topic to good or featured status? Using Jon's example, he has put in the effort to bring up to status the Security Alliance members, and to nominate them for a good or featured topic it would only need to have the actual article brought up to status. Now, any user is eligible to that. What this says to me is not that it will encourage people to bring to status all the articles of a topic, but possibly the opposite. People will create quality articles and then, in a way, have someone else take credit for them. While I can say that I like the concept, it would seem that there would be many more complications created than benefits. Cylka  -talk- 02:23, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * At Wikipedia, there's no designated group that handles promotion. Users simply vote to support or object, and that usually leads to a discussion and eventual consensus. It's in that process that any glaring objections are identified. It would be up to the submitter to identify which articles fit into a topic, then at that point the community would discuss and determine if something is missing. I really don't think this is going to prove to be a big issue; Wikipedia has a much broader assortment of articles since the are an encyclopedia about everything, whereas the Wook is focused strictly on Star Wars, and yet the GT/FT process runs very smoothly there. As far as your second point, that wouldn't a problem with FT/GT any more than it is with FA/GA (i.e., Somebody who takes an article somebody else worked their asses off on, puts on the finishing touches, and then nominates it themselves.) Plus, in that scenario, it still involves somebody bringing at least one article to GA or FA status, so ultimately, even if their intentions aren't in the best place, the Wook gets improved, right? — Hunter Kahn  03:31, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've always liked this concept. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 18:09, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Per Jujiggum, how would we decide what constitutes a full topic? -- 1358  (Talk) 18:14, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Every topic would be unique, so there would be no way to do a hard "one-size-fits-all" rule, so I would suggest leaving the definition of "full topic" somewhat open and determine it by consensus on a case-by-case basis. &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 18:30, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with Chack. I would have said so earlier but I wanted to see a few more opinions before I voiced my own. —Tommy 9281 18:42, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Per Chack and Jujiggum. No need to make things more complicated if they are perfectly fine the way they are. QuiGonJinn  Senate seal.svg(Talk) 20:23, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Unnecessary. Grand Moff Tranner Imperial Department of Military Research.svg (Comlink) 20:25, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Regarding the "making things more complicated" statement: QuiGon, you do understand that implementing Good or Featured topics will not in any way impact the existing GAs and FAs, right? That they are completely separate altogether? Quite the contrary, it would encourage people to get other articles up to FA and GA, so they could then propose the whole lot of them as a good or featured topic. — <font color="#C0C0C0">Hunter <font color="#595454">Kahn  23:46, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * See, this is what I don't get. If all of the articles that would fit into the topic are FAs or GAs, what is the point of proposing them as a whole lot? Would it be just to let others know that there are other quality articles written that have a similar topic? <span style="font-variant: small-caps; font-family: times, cursive; font-size: 16px"><font color=#008080>Cylka  <span style="font-family: times, cursive; font-size: 13px"><font color=#00A693>-talk- 02:23, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it serves multiple functions. For one, it is another way to honor quality work. Secondly, as you say, it lets readers know of that are not only related to one another, but also of especially strong quality. And, again, I strongly feel it encourages people to bring articles to FA/GA that they might not otherwise. I'm not basing that thought on theory, but the practice I observed at Wikipedia. Speaking for myself, anyway, I did three FT/GTs there: Parks and Recreation (season 1), South Park (season 1) and South Park (season 13), and I'm only two eps away from finishing Parks and Recreation (season 2). I can tell you for sure that I probably would not have brought ALL of those episode articles to GA if not for the topics; I probably would have done only a few favorites or especially important ones and left it at that... — <font color="#C0C0C0">Hunter <font color="#595454">Kahn  03:31, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * The bottom line is that this is an unnecessary addition to several systems that already work just fine. —Tommy 9281 00:04, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't get this argument at all. It's not really an addition per se, it's a way of displaying that topics X and Y are particularly well represented on our wiki. It's an alternate way of directing readers to well-written and researched subjects that they might not otherwise have looked up. It can also serve as a motivational goal for our writers&mdash;it might encourage someone to write up that last planet in the Y system or what have you. Featured topics would be great for readers and would certainly not hurt our regular users&mdash;and we might even get a few more FAs or GAs we otherwise would not have. --Imperialles 05:11, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * Additionally, because it would be entirely separate from the FA and GA process, uninterested users could just ignore it if they didn't want to be involved. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 13:38, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I would like to second Cylka's argument above, and state that I very heavily dislike how this (the first paragraph) sounds. We are not Wikipedia and we do not run the same way. But what is still bugging me the most is that no one has yet addressed the problem of how we would assort our "topics." Having just random users decide is not going to be effective or thorough; Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi may be decided to have to need only the separate issues and the story arcs, but what if Star Wars: Legacy were taken to FT, and the users decided that major characters should be included too? And what about the comic writers and artists? Should they be included too? Or what if I decided to take Outcast to FT? Would I have to improve every single article that appears in it? Or just the major ones, like the major characters and events and locations? And who is to decide what constitutes as "major?" This is highly inconsistent. And another: what if I then decided to take Fate of the Jedi to FT? Could I do that, with Outcast already being an FT? And supposing I could, would I also need to get the authors to status, etc.? I can't support something like this until I am satisfied that this can work cleanly, which (right now) it doesn't look like it will be able to do here. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 16:40, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to respond to what you said about how you "heavily dislike how this (the first paragraph) sounds." That's probably just poor wording on my part, and for that I apologize. I'm not trying to indicate we should simply take everything Wikipedia does and copy it; I've been active at both sites, and I know they are different animals. I'm simply trying to say that over at Wikipedia, the process of determining what constitutes a "topic" (which seems to be your prime area of concern) is handled by discussion and consensus and, even though the field of articles are much broader there than here, it has not proved to be a major disaster. Topic discussions over there are rarely a problem, and I think they would be even more smooth here. Much work on wiki sites is handled by discussion and consensus, and this will be no different. Also, please bear in mind that not every proposed topic is going to fly, and that's OK. Some concepts will probably be too complex (like the ones you lifted about) to be considered topics. In cases like that, the GT/FT will probably not stand up to the consensus and it will fail. But in other (and, I'd venture to say, most) cases, like some of the examples cited about, the topics will be clear and they will go very smoothly. The fact that not everything cleanly fits into a topic is not reason to object to the entire process altogether... — <font color="#C0C0C0">Hunter <font color="#595454">Kahn  18:24, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * That's precisely the problem that I'm trying to get at&mdash;there is absolutely no consistency whatsoever in what is and what isn't considered a topic. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 18:29, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * As an added note: I agree with the principles of this, don't get me wrong. It could get more users interested in writing more FAs, GAs, and possibly even CAs, which would be great for the site. In short, I think this idea looks good on paper. But I don't think it will work in practice here, per my point about an absolute lack of consistency in what constitutes and what doesn't constitute a topic. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 18:51, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * Per Jujiggum. I'm sure that this would be a great addition, and as said, encourage users to write series of articles, but it's very hard to decide what a topic should contain. Some topics are easy, like 's Atrivis project, that includes all things related to the Atrivis sector, but who could really decide what articles should be promoted to complete a topic like the Battle of Coruscant? -- 1358  (Talk) 19:01, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well is there any harm in letting consensus decide on a case-by-case basis what articles should be promoted, or if something is even a valid topic? It's not really a big deal if there's a few inconsistencies. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 19:30, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that's exactly where I disagree. In one case, an article might be deemed worthy of being a topic, whereas in another case, a very similar article might not. That lack of consistency is not fair to our writers. Also, the idea that very obvious topics such as the TotJ or Legacy comics couldn't become FTs simply because they are too large and there would be no consensus on what should be included is repulsive. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 19:38, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of the articles in the TC are decided on a case-by-case basis by users' subjective opinions, but TCs are pretty consistent because we follow precedents. Of course it's harder to maintain absolute consistency with something subjective like what constitutes a featured topic than with a more mechanic process like the FAN. But I don't think it's gonna be a total lottery, because I think ultimately those who'll be involved in the process will likely be the sort of pragmatic users who populate the GAN and FAN and won't let glaring inconsistencies and will be able to agree on larger topics like those. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 19:54, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * Per Chack; we don't need it, so why have it? —Tommy 9281 18:28, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * By that logic, why have GAs or FAs? We don't need those either. — <font color="#C0C0C0">Hunter <font color="#595454">Kahn  19:39, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * We don't need it because IMO it is redundant. —Tommy 9281 19:54, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Imperialles above. The FT and GT procedure would encourage folks to FA or GA articles they might not otherwise consider. We're doing something very similar at WookieeProject Aliens regarding the species of the Colonies region. It's a manageable chunk of aliens, and it includes a bunch of species we probably would not have done otherwise, but because they're grouped as being in the Colonies, we're trying to do them all. In other words, FT and GT would bring more articles to GA and FA than would be the case otherwise by setting another goal (arbitrary or not) for editors. ~ SavageBob 18:46, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like this. We could have some basic guidelines for the content of a FT/GT. For example: topics of individual sources should contain the main characters, the main event (the main battle or the main conflict) and could optionally contain location/weapon/planet if it plays a major role in the story (like bacta for X-wing: The Bacta War). On the other hand, series should contain only the individual issues/books and the main battle/conflict but only if it covers the whole series. I think the authors should not be included, because they are actually not part of the canon. An article could be part of more than one topic, could be main topic article and side-topic article at once. Outcast could be part of the FotJ topic and main article of the Outcast topic at the same time. We could work out many different guidelines for different kind of topics: battles (include: leaders, location), conflicts (combatants, battles), sectors (systems), systems (planets, other interstellar bodies, spacestations), planets (cities, native species)... Darth Morrt 12:01, September 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, it's not nearly that simple. For the authors: well, the individual issues/books are OOU articles too, so I don't get your point that just because they're not IU, they shouldn't be included. For conflicts: do you mean every single combatant, because for any war about which we know more than just a tiny bit, for example the New Sith Wars or the Jedi Civil War, there are going to be a ton of "major" combatants. For sectors: what about major trade routes that pass through the sector, or if a sector is famous for a certain planet, or if a/many major battle(s) took place there? Shouldn't those be included, too? For systems, the same thing: what about battles, trade routes, moons, asteroid belts, etc.? And for planets, again: battles, major trade routes, rings, orbiting bodies such as moons, and what if there's a certain element or ore that can be found only on that planet and that has a major impact on the planet, like wintrium on Klatooine, and what about major landmarks on the planet, such as the Fountain of Ancients, that have large impacts on the world; wouldn't those have to be GA/FA'd too? And what about other topics, for example, if someone wanted to FT a certain trade route, such as the Corellian Run? Would they have to bring up all the planets on the route, and the major materials that were traded along it? Or could it even be considered a topic? What if someone wanted to FT Myrkr strike team? Other than the obvious team members, would they also have to promote the mission to Myrkr? But what about other major topics closely related to that strike team, like voxyn or Baanu Raas, and what about Lomi and Welk, since they were also briefly part of the team, and what about other team organizers like Lando and Tendra, who both were very important to the mission? All of the different situations allow for no consistent guidelines. This is just far too complicated and inconsistent for its worth. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 15:49, September 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, this is why it would be best to leave it as a case-by-case, discussion-and-consensus basis, rather than try to come up with guidelines for each subject. Just look at the list of featured topics and good topics at Wikipedia. Each and every one of them has been decided in this way, and as I've said it before (but you haven't addressed the argument) Wikipedia has a much broader body of articles that the Wook does, so if anything, it should be more complicated there than it would be here. And yet these topics have all been approved by a case-by-case basis and the website has not completely fallen apart. It's just a matter of somebody proposing a topic, and allowing others to weigh in on whether they think articles are missing from it or not. It's common sense. — <font color="#C0C0C0">Hunter  <font color="#595454">Kahn  16:22, September 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * The topics I'm seeing there are either very small/specific or extremely incomplete. That's one thing I meant in saying that we aren't Wikipedia. We have stricter guidelines and generally higher standards for our status articles. Just because something works there does not mean it will work here. Several topics there are incomplete by our standards: look, for instance, at the GT "2008–09 Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team," which is both incomplete and very specific. It includes just three members of the team, and that's it. It's like making a "Rogue Squadron (14 ABY–15 ABY)" article and then only including three members of the squadron in the topic; that's extremely incomplete and pointless. And the topics that are complete are extremely specific, such as "Grade I listed buildings in Runcorn" or "Physical geography of Somerset," and for us to do such things would requrie for us to create new articles just for the topics. For instance, we could do a topic of "Planets of the Coruscant system," and conceivably stay on topic and make it complete; since it specifies just the planets, we'd only have to write up the planets. But that would mean creating a new "topic" article that doesn't have any purpose other than serving as a topic page, as it would be not IU canonical in any way, and in no way would help the site. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 16:53, September 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * A fair point. I would certainly never advocate the idea of creating an arbitrary and redundant article (like Planets of the Coruscant system, from your example) just for the purpose of having a GT/FT main article. I can see why you feel that would be a risk with these topics, though. Perhaps (and this is just a thought) we could consider modifying our FT/GT guidelines to say that they do not necessarily require a main article, but simply some sort of identified theme. For example, the GT/FT could be called "Planets of the Coruscant system" (no main article, just that title, with the wikilink to Coruscant system included) and the articles within the topic would be the planet articles. That would seem to address the problem you've cited with regard to lack of specificity. As another example, that way, rather than a GT/FT called "Bacta War", where one might raise questions about whether it should include all the battles, planets, people, weapons, etc. involved, we could do "Battles of the Bacta War", which would make clear where the scope of that topic lies and still encourage users to improve the related articles. Do you have any thoughts on that idea? — <font color="#C0C0C0">Hunter <font color="#595454">Kahn  19:20, September 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * That makes sense; I think it would definitely work better that way. The problem, then, is whether or not this is really helping anything at that point. One more question: How would you propose presenting the articles as FT/GTs without making a separate page? Would we just create a new template to stick on the page somewhere, labeling the article as part of an FT/GT alongside articles x, y, and z? What are your thoughts/ideas on this? Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 23:26, September 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I still feel that it will encourage people to improve articles they otherwise would not have, and will be helpful to readers in finding quality inter-connected articles. But I've already made that argument. As far as how to show that the article is in a GT/FT, I probably should have explained this better before. The way it works at Wikipedia is there is a box in the articles talk page (see Talk:South Park (season 1) as an example), and then little subpages (see example here) are made for each topic, and they are all listed on the FT/GT page (see here). It seems to me this could work the same way on the Wook, but I'm open to other ideas... — <font color="#C0C0C0">Hunter <font color="#595454">Kahn  01:40, September 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, I've read most of these opinions and skimmed over the rest (it would take forever to read the whole thing lol). I must say I am split on this topic. I generally like the idea. It would encourage me personally to write more (and better) articles, but it would also become redundant of the FA and GA if not handled extremely carefully. I really don't know where I stand. We could set an article limit for topics (a max and min). That might help. idk though. This is a tough one. Master Fredcerique | (Talk) 21:45, September 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to try putting together a sample Featured/Good Topics page in my userspace, after a bit more discussion occurs and we work out compromises and a consensus (if the conversation goes that way). That way we can tweak it and change it before we bring it over to the Consensus Track for an official vote... — <font color="#C0C0C0">Hunter <font color="#595454">Kahn  01:40, September 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Errm, not really sure we need to do this. Wookieepedia is not Wikipedia. --  Riffsyphon  1024 11:51, September 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've since changed my tune based on the new ideas being forwarded lately. --  Riffsyphon  1024 09:31, September 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I don't support this new program at the moment. That, of course, is not to say that its a bad idea. It's just more of a "not right now" idea. I would probably totally support it in the future, but for the time being I don't see it as necessary or particularly helpful. Darth Trayus ( Trayus Academy ) 20:53, September 7, 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

 * I generally like the idea of Featured topics, primarily for the reasons stated by others that it is another way of encouraging users to write up articles that they might not have otherwise. SavageBob has already pointed out the current goal in WP:AS of writing up all species native to the Colonies. We have previously also written up species for each letter of the Alphabet. Both these projects resulted in numerous articles being successfully passed at GA/FA level. A similar result occurred with Imperial Warlords a while back from momentum gathered in IRC. Creating a focus like these have done provides impetus to write up articles that may not otherwise receive much attention. I think that Featured topics could provide a similar impetus (The Colonies species could qualify as a FT, although the Alphabet one would not).

As for where FTs would be displayed, I think it would be quite simple to have a WP:FT page that lists all the featured topics with their respective articles listed underneath. This would not require any kind of "Planets of the Coruscant system" article, which I agree would be completely redundant. This could then be complemented by the addition of a "Random Featured topic" box to the Main page. Something along the lines of a more condensed version of the Wikipedia template. This way you promote FTs but avoid creating redundant placeholder articles.

I would be happy with a minimum of four articles of the required standard constituting a featured topic. I personally think the case-by-case basis advocated by AdmirableAckbar for approving topics would work fine. --Eyrezer 00:29, September 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a page like this. Plenty of room for tweaking, of course, but this illustrates four possible FTs and one GT. Of these five examples, three of the topics have largely been achieved by a single users working steadily on a topic; however, the other two are collaborative topics, written by a number of different writers. It is as a tool for coordinating different users that I think Featured topics have the most potential. Not for big WookieeProjects, but for smaller, more attainable goals. --Eyrezer 10:12, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * What are you going by to separate FTs from GTs&mdash;the number of FAs in the topic compared to CAs and GAs? The Kathol sector FT has more GAs than FAs, though&hellip; Maybe a better question would be: how do you propose we decide whether a topic is "Featured" or "Good"? Also, what about the Professional Greenputt Tour CAs that were written up a while back; would/could those be an FT, GT, or maybe even a "CT"? Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 14:48, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

Here's my two cents on that: Wikipedia's rule of requiring a certain fraction of the articles doesn't exactly translate here because unlike Wikipedia, not every article here can become an FA. Also, Wikipedia's rules don't take into account CAs. My suggested guidelines would be: Thoughts? &mdash; Master Jonathan  ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 17:04, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * FTs: Must contain at least one FA, and all articles must be of the highest status they can reach (i.e. no GAs over 1,000 words or CAs over 250 words)
 * GTs: Either 1) must contain one FA and all articles must be of status, or 2) must contain at least one-half GAs with the rest CAs
 * CTs (we might need a new acronym, though): any topic where all articles are of status that does not qualify as an FT or GT
 * As a whole I actually kinda like these suggestions. Yeah, we would need a different acronym&hellip;maybe CompT? Also, as a note: we wouldn't need to say "no CAs over 250 words" per CAN rule 13. I'm still not entirely convinced we necessarily need FTs/GTs/CompTs, but I also don't think it would be a bad idea; I can at least see them working here now. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 17:50, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm aware of CAN rule 13; however, I don't see why a CA that is later expanded over the word limit with new information should be stripped of its status. We don't do it to GAs expanded over 3,000 words, so why do it to CAs? Anyway, that's probably a different discussion, but it's why I put that there. As far as the acronym, I'm wondering if it might be better to rename the Consensus Track forum instead, possibly to something "in-universe" like the Senate Hall, Knowledge Bank, and trash compactor forums; possibly something related to a legislature that won't be confused with the Senate Hall. &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 21:16, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually per the CA CT, "if an update does indeed have to be made to a CA, it is likely that in many cases it will push the article over 250 words, and therefore they will no longer fall under the CA rules." But it would be very easy to just take the article to GA at that point. Anyway, I would be okay with using CompT or changing the name of the consensus track to something else; either way. One more quick question: how exactly would topics be nominated? Would a user bring the idea for a topic to an approval page of some sort, have the topic itself approved, and then get all the articles up to status, and, once the articles are up, the topic is considered FT/GT/CT? Or something entirely different? Thoughts? Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 21:32, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * I would say that the articles should be brought to status individually first, then the topic should be nominated and discussed. This would avoid wasting time with the topic nomination if the nominator loses interest or motivation and the articles don't get finished. The actual nomination process would probably just be a community vote/discussion on whether the articles are related enough to qualify as a topic and whether there are any gaps (missing articles) in the topic. If during the topic nomination process, consensus is that there's a missing article, the topic nom can be put on hold for a certain length of time (say, two months) while the nominator and others have a chance to bring the missing article(s) to status. Closing of the discussion would be done by admins based on set criteria (which I haven't begun to think about yet); no need for a special review panel like the Inq or AC for something so simple. How does that sound? &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 21:53, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem I foresee is that if a user comes to the table with a plate of articles that the community decides is too large or too small, the process is going to be a lot more complicated than if the articles that needed to be inluded in the topic had just been determined beforehand. I'm not certain whether or not we'd want a new review panel, if we'd use the ones we have, or if we'd not use any panel at all for this. I've typically leaned toward review panels in the past&mdash;I could see one working on this page in similar structure to admins on the RFU page, with both votes from a panel and regular user votes being needed as a majority to approve a topic, but I'd like to see things tried out on a trial page before we made a decision on this. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 22:34, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * As to your first point, perhaps the nomination page's talk page could be used to allow users to unofficially discuss potential topics and receive advance (but unofficial) feedback on whether it works, thus reducing the chances of the situation you described occuring at the actual nomination. As for a trial, how long would it have to be? It would have to be far longer than the one month used for the CAN process; writing half a dozen FAs (for example) and getting them through the FAN process can take up a lot of time before the topic can even be nominated, so we might be looking at the trial being as long as six months or even a year, and even then we might only end up with a dozen nominations to look at when making the final decision. If it wasn't for that, I'd support a trial in a heartbeat, but considering how long this would have to sit in "trial mode", I think it would be better to just go for it and kill it later if it doesn't work out. &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 22:58, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * (Edit-conflicted with Eyrezer :P) I think the talk page idea could work fine&mdash;that way the people who are going to be most involved will be able to put in their two cents ahead of time. I see your point about the trial, too. I guess we should probably allow discussion to continue for a bit longer here and then just strike up a CT and vote on this thing (obviously vote on the different aspects separately, like we did for the CAN). Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 23:17, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

OR
 * First of all, I am going to use "Approved Topic" (AT) to refer to a qualifying topic of whatever standard -- FT, GT or CT.
 * Jonjedigrandmaster, to reply to your question above about what differentiates a FT from a GT, I was working on the basis of the AT requiring a minimum of three articles of the highest category (Although, I now realise I had said four in my earlier post). So for instance, the "Planets of the Atrivis sector" currently has only 2 planet FAs, but over 3 GAs, so the highest level it could currently attain is GT. Say, however, someone takes another planet to FA, or manages to upgrade one of the GAs to an FA, then the project would have 3 FAs and therefore pass the threshold to become a FT. I prefer having a higher number threshold to qualify as an AT than those proposed by MJ. This would ensure that it actually takes a fair amount of work to attain AT status, and should also ensure that there are enough articles for it to actually be considered a topic, not just two related articles. Another way would be to set a threshold for total articles in any AT -- for instance, any AT must contain 5 promoted articles in total, with at least three of the highest level. So I guess my criteria are either:
 * FTs: Must contain at least three [or four] articles with FA status
 * GTs: Must contain at least three [or four] articles with GA status or higher (ie, 2 GAs and one FA)
 * CTs: Must contain at least three [or four articles with CA status or higher (ie, 2 CAs and one GA/FA)


 * FTs: Must contain at least three [or four] articles with FA status out of a minimum of 5 status articles within the topic
 * GTs: Must contain at least three [or four] articles with GA status or higher (ie, 2 GAs and one FA) out of a minimum of 5 status articles within the topic
 * CTs: Must contain at least three [or four] articles with CA status or higher (ie, 2 CAs and one GA/FA) out of a minimum of 5 status articles within the topic
 * As for the Professional Greenputt Tour CAs, yes, they could qualify, but I didn't want to put too much effort into that dummy page before getting some feedback. I will add a couple of CompTs now, though. I had personally forseen that people would propose ATs once the individual articles had already been nominated, as opposed to the other way around, although I can see the point Jon is making. I also don't necessarily think gaps should necessarily prevent the passage of an AT. For instance, both the planet groups are missing articles, but there is still sufficient numbers to qualify as they are now. If anything, the point of ATs is to encourage the writing of the gaps later. Ie, I'm tempted to get Fest or Mantooine up to FA so the Atrivis planets can flick over to FT, rather than GA, etc. --Eyrezer 23:08, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, interesting suggestions&mdash;I really like your proposals for the topic requirements, and I wouldn't mind setting a minimum of 5 articles per AT, either. The only thing I'm not so on-board with here is the gaps&mdash;if we're presenting these as complete topics, I think they should include every article that fits. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 23:17, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, fair point. I have never really thought of them as complete topics so that is not an objection for me. It seems that if the topic must be complete, it removes some of the impetus for other users to write. The AT would need to be basically a fait accompli to pass, rather than a means of encouraging others to write. As it stands, none of the current topics on that dummy page would qualify under your criteria. --Eyrezer 23:27, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * A fair point in return; I'm just hesitant to present ATs to our readers that don't actually include every article in the topic; I find that to be somewhat misleading. Of course, how strict we are about this could also end up differing case-by-case, as we'd be voting on each topic case-by-case through the topic nomination process&mdash;whatever that process ends up being. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 23:32, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Or it may be a case of how we present these ATs to ensure that we do not give the impression that they include all the possible articles that could qualify for the topic. By the way, Greenputt Tour CompT now added :) --Eyrezer 23:44, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point; as long as we didn't present it that way then it would be fine. I'm definitely warming up to this proposal; while I still wouldn't say it's necessarily needed, I could definitely see this being beneficial for the site. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 23:50, September 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is not needed, but may be beneficial. I just added two more FTs: Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights of the New Jedi Order. This illustrates the choices that will need to be made about the limits of topics, ie, this could have been put together into one large topic for all members of the New Jedi Order. Anyway, in the NJO JK topic, I have placed a link to the category of all NJO JKs. This is one possible way of indicating there are other articles to work on. Alternatively it could be placed up by the title line. This may not work for all topics -- ie, there is no category for flora and fauna of the Atrivis sector, but it should work for most of them. --Eyrezer 01:02, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I reworked the boxes you have here into a template so that the &lt;div&gt; formatting doesn't have to be manually copied every time a new topic is created. It uses parser functions to change the background color and apply status icons, as well as CSS to automatically break the list of articles into three columns. You can see it in action here, where I simply modified your FT page to use the template. Note that in my version of the page, I upgraded "Planets of the Atrivis sector" from Good to Featured because Atrivis sector itself is an FA and can be used as a main overview article in that topic, bringing it to three FAs. Thoughts? &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 03:05, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Superb! I knew someone would be able to make the process easier eventually. One query, though. They are not showing up in columns for me. Should they be? As for the upgrade of the Atrivis sector planets, I'm not sure if I like that. It might encourage the whole "Planets of Coruscant system" article thing. --Eyrezer 03:13, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * For columns, yes they should be in three columns; see if it works now. If it doesn't work, I don't know what will; I'm using the same CSS that makes and  work. As far as the overview article, for the example you gave, Coruscant system would be the overview article if it became a status article. Overview articles would not be required for a topic, and we could specifically write into the rules that pointless articles like Planets of the Coruscant system should not be created. &mdash; Master Jonathan  New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 03:26, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, still not showing up in columns for me. I take it that it is appearing in columns for you? --Eyrezer 03:28, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, crap. After further checking, the CSS for columns doesn't work in IE. I'll have to come up with another solution tomorrow when I'm more awake. &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 03:35, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I use Chrome. I checked it in Firefox though, and it looks good. I just added a GT, specially for Jonjedigrandmaster, and that template works like a charm! --Eyrezer 03:47, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that looks great in Firefox. I also like the main page idea below; I think it would be great for showcasing some of our best articles to our readers. Jonjedigrandmaster  ( Talk ) 04:10, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * (reply to Eyrezer) Cool, you and others can feel free to tweak or add to my demo page. One note, though:  is meant to be used only when the topic is incomplete to signal the reader that there are other articles; in the case of "Galactic Alliance Security members" and "Greenputt tours", both are complete and do not get the category link. &mdash; Master Jonathan  New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 05:39, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, after about two hours of work, I've modified the template so that it can do columns automatically on all browsers. It now does this with tables and a series of nested parser functions instead of CSS. The downside is that the template code is now ten times the size it previously was and ten thousand times more complicated. Also, I can't seem to get rid of the white table cell borders you (Eyrezer) have you your test page as well. Anybody that knows how to get rid of those, feel free to tweak the template directly. Currently the template can handle an arbitrary limit of 32 articles with a category link or 33 articles without, but it can theoretically handle hundreds in a single template call if it was modified to support that (which can be done fairly easily). &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 20:37, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm really late to the party. But I like this idea, a lot. It's another good way to point your average user toward our best articles, especially if the box appears on the main page. As for me personally, it would be a great impetus for me to finish up the Imperial Knights and write up more duologies of The New Jedi Order. Menkooroo 01:54, September 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughts, Menk. One outstanding question is whether a Featured topic needs to have all its qualifying articles attain status (FA/GA/CA), or whether it can attain Featured topic status when a minimum of 5 of its qualifying articles have attained status. The two positions on this differ over where they think the impetus to write up more articles will come from: either in writing up all the articles to attain the status in the first place, or, once an FT exists, in writing up articles to add to it. Any thoughts/preferences on this? --Eyrezer 02:45, September 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * My two cents: Let's take TCW webcomics, for example. If we create a GT for them right now, I highly doubt more will be written; the topic is already featured (well, "good", actually, but you get the point), so there's no significant reason to add more. On the other hand, if all of them must be written up to get the topic featured/"good"/whatever, that provides motivation to write up the rest, which comes from the desire to see the topic featured. Continuing to use the TCW webcomics as an example, the "complete topic" need not include the larger Act on Instinct Season Two and the currently Rule 5–violating The Valsedian Operation from this season, as the scope of the GT could easily be limited to Season 1 comics only. Topic scopes could be as small and as specific as necessary (within reason, of course). Also, FTs should be a major accomplishment; people write up related articles all the time, but writing up all of the articles on a certain subject is something that deserves recognition in the form of an FT. Regardless, I think a minimum of five article is a bit too high; some topics might not have five articles, so I think three would be better (with three- or four-article topics needing only two articles of the corresponding status instead of three). As an example, the Young–Elders War has only two known battles, and the war and one battle are already FA and GA, respectively. Having a minimum of three would probably provide me with the motivation to finally write up the other one, but if it's five instead, that topic would be unable to be featured except as part of a larger topic (possibly "Conflicts on Melida/Daan"), meaning less of a motivation to write up all of them, since a lot more work would be required to get to that point. The whole point of this is to encourage users to write more articles, and I see a minimum of five as an unnecessary obstacle to that. &mdash; Master Jonathan New Jedi Order.svg ( Jedi Council Chambers ) 04:18, September 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * My two cents: If not all articles are required to be written up, a requirement of five is needed to make it actually involve some work to reach AT. I guess our different thresholds reflect our differing views on this point. I am not really in favor of small ATs -- say of three or four articles only. I mean, if three, then why not two? With a low threshold of total articles, it just seems to me that the ATs will be flooded with ideas. Part of it probably comes down to who ATs are trying to encourage. Requiring all articles to be written up aims it at FA machines, those that already write and nominate scores of articles. But, to me at least, those people don't really need any motivation, and that may reflect some of the ambivalence reflected in this thread. Take Cav's DarkStryder or my Atrivis sector projects. We are going to keep working on them regardless of whether ATs get passed. However, if ATs are aimed at more casual users, who are the ones that are most likely to respond to or need encouragement to take an article to status, I think it works better not to require an AT to be complete before it comes into existence. A casual user is far more likely to feel empowered to write one more article to add to an AT than to undertake a whole series of articles. Basically, for me, requiring completion before becoming an AT would be aimed at regular users who don't really need any more motivation. Doing it the other way may motivate more casual users who do need the encouragement to write up articles without committing to writing three or four or five articles. See what I'm getting at? --Eyrezer 04:35, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

Main page
A second idea I floated above was to include a box for Approved topics on the Main page. Obviously in any CT, this would be voted on separately, but as an example of what I had in mind, something like this could be added to the main page, although in a much more condensed format. --Eyrezer 01:13, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've now reduced the boxes in size. If they were to go on the Main page, the background colour could be made a suitable blue. Perhaps the smaller size is better for the actual FT page also. --Eyrezer 02:18, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've been persuaded. That looks really good and professional. I say we go for it. That is, as long as we've worked everything out. Master Fredcerique | (Talk) 20:58, September 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay that does seem better, and I believe there is space to place a box like this on the Main Page because it's lopsided at the moment. [EDIT: Whoa, I didn't know it would change every time I previewed.] --  Riffsyphon  1024 09:29, September 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Already set to random, my friend! --Eyrezer 09:38, September 18, 2010 (UTC)

Another name (suggestion)
Ok, I admit that I haven't been following every word of this discussion (not even close), but seeing what Eyrezer is doing above, I can see how the term "Featured Topic" may be misleading. It's not the topic that's featured... it's the other articles within the topic that are FAs. I know the terms FT, GT, and AT have been ingrained here, but I'd like to suggest another naming scheme: "Related Featured Articles" or RFA (and RGA and even RCA). I think this makes the purpose of this device more obvious. "This FA is about an Imperial Grand Admiral. Here are FAs about other Imperial Grand Admirals. They are related FAs". Again, my apologies for joining the game late. If the terms FT, etc. are already what's been decided on, then cool. I just wanted to present a possibly less ambiguous name. (Edit: addendum) Hmmm, so I see now that there are mixed quality articles in those topics. How about a single overall term: Related Quality Articles (RQA). Huh? - Esjs (Talk) 23:20, September 17, 2010 (UTC)