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Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in feature discussions

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SMcCandlish (talk | contribs) at 11:57, 18 September 2007 (Give 2nd example; many do not know other F*Cs besides FAC exist.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Similar to Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions and Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions, this page discusses the commonly made fallacies and incorrect arguments used in Feature discussions. The term "Feature discussions" refers to the discussion processes used for featuring content, such as at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates (FAC), Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates (FPC), etc.

  • All aspects of an article should be brought up to the highest possible standards, but it is helpful to distinguish between certain aspects, some of which are "more equal than others":
    • Problems with content and references are crucial to the credibility of an article.
    • Problems with poor writing are crucial to the readability of an article.
    • Problems with obscure copyediting rules shouldn't be ignored, but equally they should not be accorded the same weight as other problems.
  • However, objections to promotion of an article should be actionable. This means that someone could use your comment to fix the problems with the article. To this end, make sure to give specific reasons why the article does not meet the featured articles (FA) standards; arguments that boil down to "I don't like this article" are unhelpful to people who want to improve it.
  • The FAC Director (Raul654) promotes articles based on a reading of the comments and discussion at the WP:FAC review. The community should ensure that the discussions are polite, helpful and informative, both for the participants, and for Raul.