Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/IPod/archive3

message: Questions: 1) How long have we got to fix up all the comments? 2) If this article doesn't make it to FA, can someone rate it on the assessment scale? --IE 19:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Timing is determined by the featured articles director (User:Raul654) - generally, as long as work is still being done then it won't be removed. If this fails, I don't see any problem with rating it as A-class. Trebor 19:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do. A-Class is theoretically reserved for articles that have a chance to pass FAC in their current state; if it has failed FAC, then it isn't A-Class. It's simple like that. Titoxd(?!?) 06:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because otherwise A-class would be useless, and not different from FA. A-class is "Provides a well-written, reasonably clear and complete description of the topic, as described in How to write a great article. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, with a well-written introduction and an appropriate series of headings to break up the content. It should have sufficient external literature references, preferably from the "hard" (peer-reviewed where appropriate) literature rather than websites. Should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. At the stage where it could at least be considered for featured article status, corresponds to the "Wikipedia 1.0" standard." This article meets those criteria in my eyes. Trebor 07:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That last sentence is the devil in the details. "At the stage where it could at least be considered for featured article status, corresponds to the "Wikipedia 1.0" standard."" - if it fails, then it fails this criteria. And indeed, we do have only about 790 A-Class articles, less than either GA and FA. Titoxd(?!?) 07:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it has to be able to be considered, but it doesn't have to pass. If it has to pass FAC to get A-class status, then the grade will never be used. Check the MilHist Wikiproject; they have a system for rating articles as A-class, and don't consider it to be the same as featured, just nearby. Trebor 08:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  But then, if any article that was submitted to FAC is granted A-Class status, regardless of passage, you can have articles that qualify as Starts or Stubs, but tagged as A, in spite of being overwhelmingly rejected. There can exist differences between projects in that aspect; WP:TROP uses A-Class as a "holding cell" to store articles to be eventually sent to FAC; articles that fail cannot be any higher than GA- or B-Class, until improved. Last I checked, WP:CHEMS ignores GA-Class completely and uses A-Class for articles they consider sufficiently completely, but lacking style edits. There's intentional leeway in the class definitions, but the way I assess (and I worked substantially in the development of that scale), failed FACs cannot be As. Titoxd(?!?) 08:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not saying that any article that gets put to FAC should be A-class, but those that come close and fail on more minor issues. I think if a failed FAC can only be B-class, but an equally good article that hasn't been sent there can be rated at A-class, then there is inconsistency. The act of sending an article to FAC does not negatively affect the quality (the process of FAC should improve it), yet it can turn an A-class article into a B-class? And if you apply the B-class description to this article ("it has significant gaps or missing elements or references, needs substantial editing for English language usage and/or clarity, balance of content, or contains other policy problems such as copyright, NPOV or NOR"), it doesn't seem to fit. Trebor 13:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, the issue here is that FACs usually fail on major issues, at least from what I've observed; Raul sometimes ignores extremely minor objections, or just leaves the article hanging on the page longer. If an article fails because it is missing a section, or if it treats something cursorily when it should go into the issue in depth, then it is a substantial issue, and definitely would warrant a downgrading to B-Class or GA. Remember that an A-Class rating may not always be right; in some cases, having an A-Class article downgraded following an FAC helps WikiProjects adjusts their assessment criteria. Titoxd(?!?) 03:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)