Most of you will have perused the thread and will know about the search for a better FSOpen Pic for Wikipedia. Well, as a sort of a follow on from that thread, I want to try another, slightly more ambitious project - to bring the Freespace article up to Featured article status and get it onto the wikipedia mainpage.
If you're a total Wikipedia novice, skip this part - if not, here's a little bit of an intro into the process and the page itself.
What is Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is a free, open encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It has almost one million articles and thousands of contributors. Unlike traditional encyclopedias, its scope isn't limited to major topics of great importance, but covers the whole gamut, including articles on highly specific subjects, like, in our case, FS.
What is a featured Article?
A featured article is an article judged by Wikipedians to be of the highest quality, and to represent the very best of Wikipedia. Featured articles are put on the main page for 1 day.
Why bother making Freespace's article into a Featured Article?
Put simpy, publicity. Wikipedia is one of the top twenty most accessed sites on the web. It gets millions of hits per day. Its audience is as diverse as the makeup of the internet itself. Getting an article featured on Wikipedia would put Freespace's article,and the work of the SCP, in the direct view of millions of people. That can only be a good thing as far as exposure goes.
What's involved in getting an article up to featured status?
It's not easy. At present, less than 1 article in a thousand makes it as a featured article. It has to score highly in the key categories of style, prose, completeness, accuracy and neutrality. See This list for the criteria.
OK. I don't think it's impossible to get FS up to featured article status. For one, we have precedent. Several articles on specific games have already been made features, like Starcraft, Doom, Super Mario 64, and others. FS would be in esteemed company, but it is genre defining, in much the same way as Starcraft was, so I don't think quality of game is going to be a problem.
Secondly, being a gaming article, we actually have a few advantages, like image collection. For us, if we want images (which is one of the criteria) all we have to do is go into the game and take some screenies. If we were trying to do a featured article on, say, the natral habitat of the snow leopard, we'd have a harder time getting images.
Thirdly, we already have a fairly solid article to start from. It has the essential information, it just needs more information to be more comprehensive, and it needs to be tidied up somewhat.
So, some Ideas for things to be added:
- A short section on FS3, and why it'll probably never happen.
- A couple of more specific sections on the individual games and ST, perhaps including stuff on how they were recieved, features, brief storyline, etc.
- A short section on the SCP, including the release of the code, major new features, and maybe another screenshot to go with the one at the top of the article.
- A short, neutral section on Derek Smart and his bid for FS3. It has to be neutral, or it'll get reverted out fo the article. It doesn't have to be favourable towards the proposal however. For example:
Bad
In Mid 2004, the incompetent developer of such mediocre games as "Battlecruiser Millenium" decided he wanted to buttrape the FS franchise by making FS3. The FS community told him to get stuffed, and he gave up.
Not bad
In mid 2004, Derek Smart, the controversial developer of such games as Battlecruiser Millenium, announced intentions to purchase the liscence to the FS universe and create a third installment. There was considerable opposition to this proposal due to the reputation of himself and his games among many Freespace fans. As late 2005, it appears unlikely the proposal will go ahead.
Though obviously with more information. We;ll never get featured if we try to use the article to bash DS (nor would any such section probably last very long on wikipedia).
Possibly there are other things, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to make this a community effort (the othewr is that I'm lazy and don't want to do it all myself
). So if you think of something, put it in.
There're just a few other, more general things:
Don't be surprised if your work is edited, or even removed completely. It's a wiki, it works that way sometimes. If you have an issue, bring it up on the talk page.
You don't have to sign up to edit, but it is preferred.
Please, please, please check your spelling and grammar. These little things get noticed. If you're unsure of a word, or the flow of a sentence, ask on the talk page for others to revise it.
Please make use of the "Minor Edit" checkbox, and the "Summary" section when you make an edit. Adding a few words to tell people what you did or changed makes the whole process much easier.
If you have a lot of information on a particular subject, it's not always neccesary to put it onto the main article. Summarize your info and link to a larger article on the specific subject.
That's pretty much it. There's no great rush for this, BTW. We're not on any kind of time limit, and slow and steady edits and improvements are probably going to lead to a better article in the end. Also, we may have to apply for featured status a few times, and that also may take time. I honestly think, though, that we can have it up to scratch within three months,maybe less if we get a few dedicated people helping out.[/bw]
