Please read through the policy below to familiarize yourself with our common practices and rules.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or complaints, please post them on the talk page.
Featured articles are considered to be examples of Memory Alpha's best work, often showcased on the main page as the Article of the Week. They are especially well-written, informative, and comprehensive articles that cover all available information on a subject. As such, it is crucial that the following policies and guidelines concerning the nomination of featured articles be observed - they are intended to maintain adequate standards of quality for the list.
Nominating an article
Featured article candidates are nominated on Nominations for featured articles.
- Any registered user may nominate articles, one at a time. Before nominating a second article, the first one must be resolved.
- Before nominating an article, make sure it fulfills the Featured article criteria. Consider letting other editors copyedit or comment on the article to make sure that potential flaws are detected and eliminated.
- It is allowed to nominate articles you worked on yourself, although you should request Peer review before suggesting articles primarily or even solely written by yourself. Make sure to mark any such nominations as a self-nomination.
- If you nominate an article, you are expected to address valid objections that are raised.
Voting for nominations
- Any registered user that has been in existence for at least two weeks and with at least twenty significant contributions can vote on nominations. You should not vote on an article you nominated.
- Before voting, be sure that you are familiar with the entire article before you form an opinion. This is only fair to the writers of the article, as it's likely that several hours' work went into writing it!
- If you approve of an article, write '''Support''' followed by your reasons. The nomination of an article is considered a vote of support unless it's a self-nomination.
- If you have any objections, write '''Oppose''' followed by your reasons. Any objections should be directly related to one or more of the Featured article criteria. Objections purely based on personal preference are considered invalid.
- If you want to comment without supporting or opposing, do it on the article's talk page. The nomination page is not a place for unrelated discussions regarding the article. The only exceptions are comments directly addressing a vote.
- To withdraw an objection, strike it out (with <s>...</s>) rather than removing it.
- As always, sign your comments (~~~~). This is important to keep track of voting.
Resolving nominations
A nomination can be resolved if it has been inactive for seven days, meaning that there were no new votes in that time. The following results are possible:
- Less than five votes, whether supporting or opposing: The nomination is considered unsuccessful, but may stay for another three days. If there are still less than five votes after that time, the nomination is considered unsuccessful and removed from the list.
- Five or more votes with objections. The nomination is considered unsuccessful and removed from the list.
- Five or more votes without objections or with all objections resolved. The nomination is considered successful and removed from the list.
The discussion for successful nominations can be moved to that page's talk page; those that have failed can be moved to the nomination archive.
Re-nominating an article
If a nomination has been unsuccessful for whatever reasons, an article may be suggested again after a waiting period of fourteen days from the date of the initial rejection. Before re-nominating, any objections that were made during the initial nomination voting period should be addressed and a peer review should be requested for that article.
Revoking nominations
If you feel that an article currently listed on Featured Articles should not be featured (for example, because it has been significantly changed), it should be listed on featured article removal candidates. Be sure to state the reasons why you think the article should no longer be featured. Then add the {{featuredremoval}} message to the top of the article and leave an edit summary informing other members that it was listed for removal.
Articles that were recently nominated for Featured Article status should not be listed for removal – if you had an objection or complaint about the article, it should have been brought up during the nomination period.
Do not list articles that previously survived removal attempts, unless the article in question has undergone major changes since the last time it was nominated for removal. Frivolous nominations for removal may be deleted by the administrators without notice.
Once an article has been listed for a period of seven days, it will either be restored to the Featured Articles list or archived in the successful removal candidates log. Nominations for removal will require at least one additional vote supporting removal (in addition to the original nomination), plus a majority of the total votes, in order to permanently remove the article from the Featured Articles list.