Forum:Fanon of the Month: Reprioritization

Hi there again, it's your friendly bureaucrat Sonasaurus here. If I could have a few minutes of your time, I'd like to get your opinion on a matter that's come to my attention as of late.

In January 2012, I proposed a reinstatement of Halo Fanon's formerly defunct Fanon of the Month system. I did this because the Good Article project, which had done well upon its initial launch in June 2010, had stopped receiving new nominations for quite a while. And as a fanfiction wiki, I think it's in our best interest to keep a healthy flow of rewarding good writing. And since Fanon of the Month allows for regular distribution of awards every month as opposed to leaving it to the whim of our users who apparently are quite lazy when it comes to nominating the work of others, it seemed like a good idea to bring it back. I even promised not to let Fanon of the Month die again like it did before.

14 months later, it seems I've successfully kept that promise. But now I'm asking myself, what's the whole point of having the GA project at all? It's still not getting much activity, and I had intended for the two projects to run parallel to each other, not have one kill the other. And although I can already hear someone rubbing it in my face, I think it's time to change up the game a little.

Here's how I see it. Since Fanon of the Month gives awards based on "best of the bunch" voting, as opposed to Good Articles' "support/oppose" voting, it's guaranteed that as long as one or more nominations come in for FotM every month, there will be a winner. GA, while limiting in that only 5 people get a say in how good the article is, holds a stricter standard of what's accepted as a quality article and what's not. So, what I suggest is that FotM be restructured so that it's limited to only users who have been present on Halo Fanon for 1 year or less, to encourage them to write better, stick around, and with enough hard work, get their articles featured on the front page, and to boot, get that award on the top-right corner of their article that says "well done". As for the more experienced users, we should submit our work to GA instead, so that we can finally revive the project and keep it from dying out because it has to compete with FotM.

Focusing on FotM, there is one additional change I suggest making to the voting system. I will be removing the three-month grace period rule since FotM is limited to users who will only have 1 year to win a nomination. What's more, I don't want the nominations and voting to be swarmed for one month, and then come up near-empty for the rest, since that always seems to happen, so I suggest we change it from nominating separately every month to posting all nominations into a single pool, where the article with most votes is selected at the beginning of every month, and the rest continue to compete for the remaining months. These articles will not be removed until either they win with the most votes or their author has passed their 1-year mark on the wiki. Again, put your vote down below if you like/dislike this idea.

Now, this is going to be a major change, and I'm sure a lot of you will have questions. I'll address the obvious ones now, and if you have more that I've missed, leave them in the comments section.

Q: If approved, when will this new system take effect? A: We're at just the right time to make this change, if you all agree with me. At the moment, we have one more nominated FotM article to be featured for the month of April, during which you will have time to submit your input for the future of FotM. With any luck, we'll reach a decision by mid-April, and the new system will be set in May.

Q: Will past FotM winners be removed from the board? A: That still has to be decided. If you believe it would be less confusing to change the "version 1" of FotM to GA, and start afresh with version 2, I can always convert all the FotM awards to GA. If you would rather keep existing FotM awards as they are, then that's how it'll be. I'll be sure to add some form of indication to differentiate between "version 1" and "version 2" on FotM's list of winners. Either way, I'm remaining neutral on this decision, so please put your vote for that.

Q: What happens to my vote if the article I voted for wins? A: You will be permitted to vote for another article as soon as the one you previously voted for is taken off the list for whatever reason.

Q: What if most or all nominations for FotM contain articles of low quality? A: Even though users are free to nominate their own articles as they please, they still cannot vote for themselves. It's a valid concern that a great number of new users may nominate their own article when it's of poor quality, but remember that nominees with 0 votes cannot be given the Fanon of the Month award. And as long as all nominated articles abide by the minimum requirements (which is a must, or they will be removed), it's a safe bet that it's at least a decent article. Remember that the voting process still comes down to all users, not just the newer ones.

Q: Can new users still be nominated for Good Articles? A: Yes. It will be considerably more difficult to win the Good Article award, but it is still open to everyone.

For (1)

 * 1) As per proposal.

For (1)

 * 1) As per proposal.