Memory Alpha:Featured article reviews

Template:Farc

Articles nominated for removal

Grathon Tolar

Someone said that Solbor, an article of nearly identical length, one paragraph difference, is not fit because the character is not feature material. How is this featured then? It's not right to have this in the same category as Benjamin Sisko. Makon 04:54, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Definitely agree. It's well written, and complete, but there is almost NO informatio about the character himself, it's all episode summary material. I'm not sure how a character in 3 scenes from one episode (albeit a great episode) even got through a FA nomination process. Logan 5 18:12, 5 Oct 2005 (UTC)

• "It's not right to have this in the same category as Benjamin Sisko." The same can be said about episode summaries, but yet they are. The criteria is quite clear, and frankly, if you are going to nominate something for removal, you shouldn't be looking at length, but rather if it is well-written, comprehensive, accurate, undisputed & stable. I see no factors in this nomination that evaluate those factors -- just "length" -- which is not a limiting factor. The key is that it is well written, and has nothing to do with how many times they appeared, length or other trivial matters -- which is obviously limited by single-appearance characters -- it has to how the subject and limited imformation is handled. If the character plays a significant role in the episode, obviously a portion of the article is going to sound like the episode -- simply because the character was featured in the episode and a portion of the episode revolved around the character! Telek R'Mor, a minor character that really acted as the motivator for getting Ethan Novakovich and Grathon Tolar nominated, would seem to be an ideal example of a character with a one-time appearance that was well handled without sounding like an episode summary. If you really have doubts about why this or other "short" articles were featured, read the talk page(s) and evaluate the votes for nomination there before posting a page here for a reason that was clearly discussed in the nomination process. --Alan del Beccio 14:42, 6 Oct 2005 (UTC)
  • I think there is a clear difference between the Tolar-Novakovich type character and R'Mor or the main dude from The Defector. Both of the latter characters had plenty of extra information to add about themselves, their culture, and the events around the episode. These guys could just as easily been labled "Alien guest star" or "Unamed crewman" and had just as much info as they do now. It just bears pointing out that "well-written" is a necessary but not a sufficient criteria for nomination, nor is complete. It has to be a combination of those things, plus, IMO, the additional factor of really adding to MA by expanding beyond just the action on the screen to real character development (or in the case of episodes, meta-Trek). Logan 5 14:58, 6 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I've been extremely reluctant to make my opinion heard in this forum for my (very rational) fear of being the bitchy, whiny guy who complains when people disagree with him. But I'd like to bring up the same points I was making with an administrator regarding the invalidity of removing the Featured Article status from both Grathon Tolar and Ethan Novakovich.

The most central point to my dissertation is that you are objecting to their FA status on the grounds that they don't meet with criteria which do not exist. When I originally nominated both of these articles as Featured Articles, I examined the stated criteria of being an "...especially well-written, informative, and comprehensive article that covers all available information on a subject." and I personally desided that they did, in fact, meet those criteria. Once up for nomination (see [1] and [2] respectively), it was clearly stated in both nominations that the articles in question were covering "minor subjects"; in reply it was noted by an administer in support of the nomination that "The fact that it is a minor subject is irrelevant". Both of these articles were voted on by the Memory Alpha community with no objections and were made Featured Articles.

Your argument that "'well-written' is a necessary but not a sufficient criteria for nomination, nor is complete." is not bourne out by the two places the criteria are mentioned, neither of which stipulate anything additional except for what has already been stated: well-written, informative, and comprehensive. There is nothing dictating length, significance of subject matter, or "meta-Trek" as qualifiers for Featured Articles.

Succinctly, if this discourse led to a discussion where the Featured Article criteria were reevaluated and made more specific and detailing (such as, if the community wanted to change the parameters for a Featured Article and dictate that it should be a certain length in addition to being of high-quality to be featured), I would be in whole and complete support of helping with that process; and should any articles I contributed substantially to not qualify under those reevaluated rules, I would be the first to stand by their status removal. But the criteria now are the exact same as they were when those articles were initially nominated and accepted by a majority of MA contributers.

Based on the information presented above, I anticipate one of two results to occur. Either Ethan Novakovich will revert the loss of his FA removal status and Grathon Tolar will be removed from this list; or a new forum will be opened for discussion and decision-making for the purpose of defining new and more detailing/stringent criteria for the acceptance of Featured Articles, after which all current Featured Articles will have to undergo a reevaluation process to determine whether they may maintain their status under the new protocols. Either way, I greatly look forward to one or the other conclusion. — THOR ^=/\= 18:00, 25 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I still don't think that Ethan Novakovich should be a featured article, but you're right, there is no written limitation concerning extent, so I don't support it this time. We need a general discussion on this. --Memory 18:32, 25 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't think 3 votes that these got constitute a "majority MA contributors" so I'm not sure the vetting was as rigorous as it should be. As to criteria: FA are supposed to represent the best of MA's work. And these type of articles do not, in my opinion, do that. Mainly because they cover minor characters who can be summed up without any effort beyond recapping the events of one episode or a few scenes. So I wholeheartedly agree that we should have a further discussion on this, but I disagree that these two articles meet the current criteria as I understand them. Certainly there are other articles out there that were complete, well written and informative (see Nova class), that didn't get FA status becuase they lacked something. Logan 5 19:10, 25 Oct 2005 (UTC)

So what do we do? After the Noah discussion it's definitely clarified that we don't accept removal nominations with the reason "it's a minor character" or "I don't feel groovy while reading this". So if there is something more concrete (and formally correct) than the length argument, add it now. If there are no more reactions, I'll archive it in two days. --Memory 18:38, 16 Nov 2005 (UTC)

The clearest reason I can give is that the article is lacking substantive information on the character, which to me is a primary criteria for an FA of this type; it doesn't really tell us anything about the character, just what he did. Contrast this to the article on R'Mor which gives us insight into the character, not just the actions, or the possibilities for Ghemor, Tomalak, Jarok, Moriarty and any number of other minor characters with far more potential. But I freely admit my definition of informative may be an intangible criteria except in clear cases like Novakovich, which was completely devoid of any substantive info about the character himself, may not be sufficient reason to de-list. Logan 5 19:29, 16 Nov 2005 (UTC)