How to Attract Readers to a wikiHow Article
says to nominate your own article as a “featured article candidate.” What does everyone else say/think?
Do you care to express an opinion on whether you should or should not nominate an article you started for featuring? *edit to remove reference to an article in the previous post that was subsequently changed
Actually I myself had did that in every article(mine) I think it should be, I placed. But my opinion is against it. I don’t think it was alright. We should not nominate our article to be a featured article candidate because some articles won’t be of that standard and the fac tag would be still placed which would result in waste of time of boosters or admins. If others place to our article then that is a good proof for it to be a good article… good enough to be featured.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with self-nominating an article if it’s high-quality enough. I wouldn’t recommend nominating it right after you wrote it or anything, but if the article is good and helpful, then sure, why not? Plus, it’s not like FAC’ing an article means that it absolutely will be featured. Nor does it mean that people will come flocking to your article by the thousands. All it means is that you’d like people to review its quality to see if it’s good enough for the front page.
Jordan
6
Personally, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with nominating an article you started as a FAC with appropriate discretion, as long as it meets quality standards and could be timely reading (such as about a current or relevant event) or generally helpful/useful to a broad audience. And like Andrew stated, it doesn’t necessarily mean the article will be featured, it just nominates it as a candidate.
Lojjik
7
I must respectfully disagree - it seems a tad egocentric. Why not have someone else look it over, and ask if they think it’s ready and would be willing to nominate it? I just think nominating your own writing for a quality status is like a director nominating their own work for “Best Screenplay”. It can be done, but it’s certainly poor taste. I don’t think I’m for a policy requiring this, but I don’t think it should be an encouraged behavior either.
system
8
I was the one that asked @Alabaster
to ask the question in the forums to create community opinions and to open the topic. Here was my response to him via talk page: While “How to Attract Readers to a wikiHow Article” informs people on how to nominate an article (their own, someone else’s), each person has their own opinions concerning IF one should nominate their own article. Over the years, I’ve seen people fac their articles literally just after publishing them. While there is no rule whether an article can be self-nominated, I myself have been against self nominating, just because of how wikis naturally are. Even though one feels strongly that their article is featuring material and on that level, you’ll never know if someone else feels differently and would look at the article as a “need-of-improvement-beforehand”. In the past 7 1/2 years, I have never self-fac’ed an article that I created for that reason since I always wanted the material to be a “community piece” or “community work in progress” before it reached that stage of being viewed as featured article worthy.
I see nothing wrong with self nominating your article for an FAC as it is the community that makes the final decision on whether the FAC will pass or not. Ethically though that’s a different question. Some how receiving an FAC from another party gives me an ego boost and adds legitimacy to my writing efforts. Personally, I’d much rather have someone select an article as it’s an “atta boy” for an article well-written.
You could compare this to boosting your own articles or awarding yourself a RS. While there isn’t a policy saying it’s not allowed, this behaviour is generally frowned upon by the community.
There are some valid points raised. And, I agree that it is probably not the better part of discretion to self-FAC an article you started. The mature, ethical choice would normally be to refrain from self-nominating a FAC. Many new users come to the site and get excited about the prospect of receiving honors through badges. They might ask, for example, “How do I become a featured author?” The canned answer is, “Read How to Become a Featured Author
.” So they do. – And, they find that they can become a featured author by writing a featured article. Curious, they take the initiative to read “How to Write a Featured Article.” The problem arises when the reader comes to Step 9 of that article:
- Nominate the article to be featured. Write {{fac}} on the discussion page (not anywhere in the article). “F.A.C” stands for Featured Article Candidate. This notice will automatically add the article to the list of others being considered.
It does not seem right to slight them for being unethical when they follow this step and self-nominate. After all, they followed steps that were clearly laid out in a widely read “how to use wikiHow” article. Perhaps it would be better to lay out the ethics to consider before choosing to self-nominate. It might also be appropriate to suggest they include their reason for self-nominating on the discuss page. As @Jordan
pointed out, time might be of the essence because the subject is now
before the media. Or, someone might be sharing an idea they recently discovered. They might have thought the idea was so good that it ought to be shared widely, then took the time to write the article. Now they want to do everything they can to get the idea in front of a lot of people. It may not be all about: Look what I did!
system
12
Oh. I boost my own to avoid people giving me a RS. And then the tool to award after articles were boosted came out.
@Illneedasaviour
The difference between RSing your own article and FACing it is two-fold:
- A FAC is only a nomination, while an RS is an award.
- It is not, to my knowledge, anywhere written: “RS your own article.”
I think that nominating your own article is fine so long as it really meets the standards. If you’re doing it just for the sake of doing it, though, it’s a different story.
I admire your humility there @Maluniu
! I never boost my own articles because I always like getting a close look from someone else, and I like to let another booster decide if the article is RS-worthy or not. In addition, I do recall reading a tip advising others not to award Rising Stars to themselves, as this can give people a conceited impression of the booster who does. This is advice I used to not follow, but I would advise people to wait for collaboration on an article to happen before
performing a self nomination for featuring. If I were one of you, I would only nominate my own articles for featuring if I felt that they are featured article quality (not willy-nilly). That being said, I would not encourage this behavior, as it may sound selfish and conceited. I would especially discourage people to nominate only
their own articles for featuring; this would also sound self-centered, in my humble opinion. I personally feel that it would be best to nominate other people’s articles for featuring and wait for someone to nominate yours, rather than nominating your own articles (I can admit that I used to not follow this advice, but I try to do so now).
system
16
Featuring an article isnt a “good job” to only an author but rather all those who contribute. If I ever write an article, it will probably be shit. If a few months go by and everyone has made it to be good enough for fa status, I’ll sure as hell nominate it not for myself but for everyone else and ill probably send a thank you to some talkpages.
I politely disagree as I take pride in the articles I start. There is absolutely nothing wrong in taking pride in the volunteer work we do here. I also appreciate the efforts of others who provide their creative input to make an article I started even better. As I’ve written many times here in the past: It takes many hands to make light work.
system
18
I wasn’t saying that authors shouldn’t take pride, dude. Im saying an fa isnt just for an author but rather everyone who contributes yknow? Maybe im the only one who sees it like that.
No, I am sure that there are plenty of others who feel that the vast majority of featurings honor the work of multiple contributors. I am one.
Me too. I congratulate contributor when my article gets featured.
