Writing featured content: Advice from Sturmvogel 66; Sports, sports, sports!

To give our readers a "sporting" chance at writing featured content, here are some suggestions from Sturmvogel 66, who has written or co-written 16 pieces of featured content and 28 A-class articles, including this week's HMS Eagle (below), since becoming a Wikipedian in 2007.

• Make friends with a really good copyeditor; he or she will save you endless aggravation regarding your prose.
• Before nominating, participate in several FACs to get a feel for the process and to learn what most of the reviewers look for. Then carefully dissect all the comments and try to figure out why they were made.
• Be prepared to grow a thick skin; just because you can't see the value of a reviewer's comment doesn't mean that it doesn't have one. If you don't understand a comment, ask for clarification, but be prepared to address the issue. I found this one of the hardest things to do when I first began going through the process, as many of the requested changes seemed pointless.
• Don't sweat stupid little mistakes being discovered at FAC; no reviewer is sniggering to himself about what a moron you are for x and y mistakes. They're embarrassing, but get over it as those sorts of things are sometimes the hardest things to catch.
• Learn to value consistency; that's one of the first things that reviewers will notice about your citation style, bibliography, or whatever. You'll save yourself a lot of time and effort if you do it, whatever it is, consistently as you're writing.
• Learn the basics about image licensing; just because it's on Commons doesn't mean that it has a valid license or is out of copyright.
• Let someone else look at your article before you submit it to FAC.
• Submit your article to a Good Article nomination or, if your project has them, an A-class review; they're unlikely to catch everything, but they should be able to identify major problems.

This week, five featured articles were promoted:

• Geoffrey (nom), described as "one of the more infamous royal bastards" by nominators Ealdgyth and Malleus Fatuorum, Geoffrey was an illegitimate son of Henry II of England and an unknown woman. Made Bishop of Lincoln before being ordained, Geoffrey later led a campaign against the Scots. He was later selected Archbishop of York by his half-brother Richard the Lionheart, in a probable powerplay. He died on 12 December 1212.
• St Nicholas, Blakeney (nom), which was created after nominator Jimfbleak read about medieval graffiti located there (example pictured on right). It is the nominator's first non-avian FA. The current church, located in Blakeney, Norfolk, UK, was built in the 15th century over an existing 13th-century structure, having been partially destroyed during the English Reformation and later renovated during the Victorian restoration. The church is a Grade I listed building for "exceptional architectural interest".
• Knowle West, Bristol (nom), developed and nominated by the Bristol native Jezhotwells. The neighbourhood, located in Bristol, UK and inhabited as early as the British Iron Age, covers an area of 1.26 square miles (3.3 km²) and has been home to The Eagles, musician Tricky, and boxer Dixie Brown. The area is one of the most economically deprived in Bristol and has relatively high indices of crime and drug use.
• HMS Eagle (nom), nominated by Sturmvogel 66 after a successful A-Class Review. The aircraft carrier, initially meant to be a battleship for Chile, took at least 10 years to construct. After a time stationed in the Mediterranean and China, in World War II the Eagle spent two years supporting British war efforts in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic before being sunk by the German submarine U-73.
• Chaplain–Medic massacre (nom), created and developed by Ed!. After heavy fighting during the Battle of Taejon in the the Korean War, 30 unarmed and wounded soldiers, as well as a chaplain, were killed by Korean People's Army troops. A medic, who managed to escape, was the only survivor. The massacre was one of several incidents which led the US Army to investigate war crimes; North Korean commanders also instigated stricter guidelines for the handling of enemy captives following the incident and the Hill 303 massacre that followed.

No featured pictures were promoted this week. Readers interested in participating are invited to acquaint themselves with the featured picture criteria and join the discussion at the candidates page.

This week was a good week for sports fans everywhere. Of the nine featured lists promoted this week, eight were sports-related, involving college football, association football, county cricket, and Major League Baseball. The sole non-sports list promoted this week, however, really took root in the brains of the the Featured List reviewers.

• Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (T–V) (nom), created and developed by Killervogel5. The list includes the names of 88 Philadelphia Phillies baseball players whose last names begin with T, U, or V (one pictured at right).
• List of the largest genera of flowering plants (nom), created and developed by Stemonitis. The list includes the 57 genera of flowering plants with more than 500 species. The largest, Astragalus, has 3,270 described species.
• List of Arkansas Razorbacks head football coaches (nom), created and developed by Patriarca12. The University of Arkansas's Arkansas Razorbacks football program has had 29 head coaches and 2 interim coaches in the 117 years since its founding. The current head coach is Bobby Petrino.
• List of 50/80cc Motorcycle World Champions (nom), created and developed by NapHit. The list follows the winners of the Grand Prix, the premier championship of motorcycle road racing, in the 50/80cc class from its inception in 1962 to its disbanding in 1989. Ángel Nieto won the most championships, with six between 1969 and 1977.
• List of Tranmere Rovers F.C. managers (nom), created and developed by U+003F. The list documents the 24 managers of the Tranmere Rovers Football Club, based in Birkenhead, Wirral, England. The club is currently managed by its former physiotherapist, Les Parry.
  

  

• List of Clemson Tigers head football coaches (nom), created and developed by Spyder Monkey. Playing out of South Carolina, Clemson University's Clemson Tigers football has been led to bowl games by eight coaches, including one coach bringing it to the national championships. Of the team's 25 coaches, Frank Howard coached the team for the longest, leading the team for thirty seasons between 1940 and 1969. The current head coach is Dabo Swinney.
• List of official County Championship winners (nom), created and developed by Harrias. The County Championship, the annual first-class cricket competition for counties of England and Wales, uses a round-robin system and has taken place for over a hundred years. The current champions, the Lancashire County Cricket Club, have won the championship eight times; however, the most wins belong to Yorkshire, with thirty individual titles and one shared (one captain pictured on left).
• Babe Ruth Award (nom), brought to Featured List status by Muboshgu. The Babe Ruth Award, established in 1949 by the New York branch of the Baseball Writers Association of America, is awarded to the player with the best performance postseason. As of 2011, the award has been won by the New York Yankees sixteen times.
• List of Chicago White Sox managers (nom), created from a redirect and developed by Rlendog. The Major League Baseball team the Chicago White Sox has seen 39 managers since its inception in 1901. Of these, the longest serving was Jimmy Dykes, who managed the team for 1,850 games over 12 years. The current manager is Robin Ventura.

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• I just thought that it was worth mentioning that FPC is not a dying project, and remains active (it's certainly ahead of featured sounds and featured portals, and probably featured topics). It's just that a lot of nominations get shot down pretty quickly. 14 images have been nominated in the last week, and I suspect at least five will pass. That said, more reviewers and nominators couldn't hurt! J Milburn (talk) 22:58, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is exactly how Featured Sounds was before its demise, however, you are correct. FP will not die due to the abundance of free images on Commons, whereas free sound files are in the few by comparison. The project died due to disinterest and lack of activity, I hope that FP won't go down that road. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 4:41pm • 06:41, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Last week was dry in general. ResMar 18:50, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I hope nobody read the blurb about FP and assumed I meant the project was dying. During my perusing of the page, I noticed that perhaps 4 people vote regularly. As an image needs 5 votes minimum to pass, I figured having interested reviewers would be useful. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:37, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]