Problematic articles

I would be more precise and write 'in the field of...'

Fine by me. My lengthy reply above was in response to FT2 - he was critical about one gross distinction I made between scholarly and non-scholarly articles so he is more attuned to or sensitive to the full range of types of Wikipedia articles. Along the lines of your wish to be more constructive, maybe FT2 has some ideas about how to relate my point to a more precise and accurate taxonomy of Wikipedia articles ....

I've worked on some featured quality articles, and I'd definitely agree that everything you said is part of our highest quality standards. The question is if that's a baseline, or is that the highest possible standard? Because as much as I hate to say it, CNN is basically consumable. No respectable academic would say they were neutral in the sense that they cover all respected points of view and separate fact from fiction. But in the sense that they present two sides and usually don't pick one of the other, they are neutral.

I think we may need to discuss what we mean by "baseline" anyway. A phrase that comes by is "safe enough to eat". Not fine dining safe, or even organic foods safe. It might mean "McDonald's safe". "Won't put you in the hospital safe".

I think more specifically, we want to know what we're going to actually DO when we have the baseline.

Is it just a way to mark articles for readers, to give them adequate warning? Is it a way to mark articles that -- if they can't reach the baseline -- should never have been added to the encyclopedia in the first place?

No, I think FA are way above the baseline quality we are trying to define. Baseline is indeed to mark an ok article, but not necessarily a high-quality article. Articles which are below the baseline quality are in some way problematic.

Well, articles below the baseline includes stubbs and a good deal of other articles. I think we need to balance two diferent stakeholders: readers who expect a certain level of quality, and yes, we need more refined ways of communicating to readers how accurate or complete an article is. Editors (meaning, people who actually edit) are the other stakeholders and ideally - and in the old days - for them Wikipedia was always a work in progress, articles were always in some need of improvement. We need to communicate different kinds of information to different stakeholders.

This is why I was always suggesting to introduce several quality levels, not just two or three.

Well, pal, I am with you on that!

Wikiprojects currently have their "A, B, C" system.

Are you suggesting delegating to them an overhaul of how these marks are determined with benchmarks?

Or are you suggesting refining the GA system?

I can't imagine serious opposition to some proposal along these lines, from anyone.

Either way would be fine with me. In practice, we probably need to combine both, since it is unreasonable to vote for every stub to determine it is a stub. After flagged revisions have been introduced, editors are actually entrusted by the community to decide which articles are sub-standard and which are ok, and we can tie the baseline quality criterion with this level - then an editor decides whether the article is of baseline quality. May be for some other levels we may use trusted users as discussed in another tread,; for some problematic cases we may even need real experts. I believe some of this stuff can be delegated to the Wikimedia-wide-projects, but I do not think it is a good idea if the projects decide for instance what is baseline quality.

Something I raised in another thread: only featured articles are determined by consensus. Every other rating scale is a matter of going into the talk page and changing it yourself. (Or in the case of "Good Article" and "A-Class", asking one other person to do it for you.)

I think this is a great idea. But the logistics are tricky.

Who is going to sign off on "baseline quality"?
How do we ensure that the person/people signing off have correctly understood and applied the baseline standard?
What does "baseline quality" mean, if it's only half way to "featured quality" (comprehensive, thoroughly researched, neutral not just in tone but in substance)?

I'm stumped, to be quite honest. But I want to see this work.

Maybe "baseline quality" can mean: complies (to the best of our knowledge) with NPOV, V, and NOR; if an academic topic perhaps draws on a certain minimum number of sources, or we can have a checklist - identifies major debates, identifies key historical moments?

One thing I am starting to think is, how can the Wikiprojects be of use? Well, one criteria for baseline quality could be: to give the relevant wikiproject a foothold or foundation for taking it to the next step. This would involve in effect giving wikiprojects assignments. But I think it is perfectly reasonable, for example, to ask Wikiproject to develop a bibliography of works published by major university presses or in the leading journals in the past five years. Just having such a bibloigraphy would help us know how complete the article is, and provide future editors with something "to do" (i.e. start reading through that bibliography to add to the article). This would not be a full-scale "good article" or "featured article" drive, it would be something short of it - but still something, something we have been lacking (a systematic algorithm of stages through which to move an article, with "to do" lists at critical moments e.g. first develop a bibliopgraphy; then review the literature; then revisit NPOV issues.

Just an idea.

I think baseline quality is best described through qualifiers and exceptions.

"Not entirely referenced, but the lead is verified in reliable sources."
"Not a comprehensive survey of the subject, but presents at least two perspectives in a neutral tone."
"Not complete, but stable."
"Does not violate what Wikipedia is not."

If we're going to use a consensus-based process (e.g.: ask a WikiProject) to judge the baseline, we may as well just make it a nomination-based process like a "featured article". Someone nominates the article for the baseline, and a few experienced editors go through the article to check it. That already takes a long time. Once you start asking people to compile entire bibliographies to judge the baseline, we may as well ask them to write a featured article. You're asking the evaluators to do the work of the editors, which is going to make this a huge burden in practice.

You misunderstand me. I di dnot say that someone has to compile a complete bibliography to make an article base-line. I said that whatever makes an article base-line it should be enough that the appropriate Wikiproject can move on to the next step, one of which could be coming upo with a bibliography from the past five years (which is not "complete") - a topic has to be clearly established and defined to make that possible. Isn't it obvious that for people to come up with a bibliography (as a basis for the next step, more research) the bibliography cannot have hundreds of items? This means that a clearly defined encyclopedic topic must first be established. ANd I consider this to be one criteria for "base-line."

I see nothing wrong with defining grades of quality not just in terms of what the article fulfills, but what future research thus becomes definable.

I have no objection to the other criteria you suggest.

Oh, that makes sense. Once you have the baseline, there would definitely be additional work to be done. If the baseline is as comprehensive as an expanded dictionary definition, the next step would be finding the research to flesh it out.

Evaluating the baseline is still the challenge though. Even the featured article process takes literally weeks, often a month or more. It's easy to see that this will make it impossible to evaluate more than a few dozen articles per year, in a pool of millions. That's just as bad as coming up with a baseline quality standard that can just be stamped on by any passerby who likes the article.

I agree with you. That's why I think a checklist like

no clear NPOV violations
no clear V or RS violations
no clear NOR violation

is a start. You point to two extremes but i am sure there is a middle ground.