Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in feature discussions

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.
• In general, folk who nominate articles at FAC have put alot of work into them and as such emotions can run high in nominations. Thus, anything which keeps a positive spin communication in the case of opposing or highlighting fixes needed to keep morale and mood good is essential. Some hints include:

Be conciliatory, especially if an inexperienced nominator. Consider writing, "Oppose for now...(reasons)...happily support once fixed", rather than a flat "Oppose". Although obvious, it leaves the communication on a positive note.

Be humble; if an article is really falling short and fails in many areas, offer some pointers on where or what to do rather than just 'PR'.

Try to focus on how to fix rather than what is wrong; remember the ultimate aim is to create featured articles regardless of who writes them.

It is alot easier and quicker to fix obvious typos and formatting glitches yourself rather than typing how to fix them. Also makes for a shorter discussion page at the FAC itself, although if there is any time to write detailed edit summaries, this is it!