I created my first article, Descent (aircraft)[1], the same day the Riemann hypothesis was proven.
You could call me an Eventualist, I am definitely a Wikipediholic and I am happy to help Wikipedia someday reach usefulness. I believe the single greatest problem with Wikipedia (excluding vandalism) is its lack of Featured Article quality articles.
A featured article exemplifies our very best work and features professional standards of writing and presentation. In addition to meeting the requirements for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes:
It is well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, and stable. Read Article development and The perfect article to see how high the standards are set. In this respect:
(b) "Comprehensive" means that the article does not neglect major facts and details.
(c) "Factually accurate" means that claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately present the related body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see attribution and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations. See citing sources for information on when and how extensively references are provided and for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes or endnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.
(d) "Neutral" means that the article presents views fairly and without bias (see neutral point of view); however, articles need not give minority views equal coverage (see undue weight).
(e) "stable" means that an article does not change significantly from day to day and is not the subject of ongoing edit wars.
It complies with the standards set out in the style manual and relevant WikiProjects. These include having:
(a) a concise lead section that summarizes the entire topic and prepares the reader for the higher level of detail in the subsequent sections;
(b) a proper system of hierarchical headings; and
(c) a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents (see section help).
It is of appropriate length, staying tightly focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail; it should use summary style to cover sub-topics that are treated in greater detail in any "daughter" articles.
The following guides focus on the most common problems in nominated articles:
"Far too often we have endless a priori debates about certain things, debates which lead nowhere because we have no evidence. A better approach is to be flexible and try things and see what happens, and proceed thoughtfully based on lessons learned. --Jimbo"
I totally agree with the above quote.
There are a few problems with Wikipedia I think need to be addressed: Stay tuned.
AfD - the more I see of this the less I like. I believe the whole thing needs to be scrapped in favor of something else, what that is I don't yet know , but I have some ideas...
Ignore AFD - focus on article creation/improvement. Too many people are spending their time deleting articles instead of contributing. Lets stop deleting altogether, with the exception of articles that have offensive/abusive/etc titles or have offensive/abusive content that needs removal quickly, or articles linked to. I don't see a problem with leaving an article with a good title but no good content up. If nothing links to it then nobody will see it. Someday someone may want to create a valid article there and find one already created, but needing to be changed to good content.
Maybe don't delete that page but blank it, put up a do not create notice, and protect the page. A large part of the deletion work is re-deleting pages that constantly get re-created.
The See also section - I don't like it. Except for a few cases (antonyms, synonyms, "List of" links) this section is just a cop out for not including the links in the article body or placing the article in a category. If the link has to do with the topic it should be explained why in the text, or evident in the categories the page is placed in. This will add to article, giving it a better context, and reducing the number of nonsence listings in see also sections (See:Flight)(and then you won't need the see also link)...
This ones a bit of a rant. Sometimes protected pages are treated with too much reverence. Just because it is protected does not make it perfect. And just because a non-admin suggests a change does not mean you have to agree with it. Some editors superiority complexes lead them to believe that since they've been around long enough, they know what should and should not be done in every situation. Newbies are not being taken seriously in their suggestions and edits and a lot of good edits are being ignored/reverted. I say - if a non-admin asked for an edit to be done on a protected page, as long as it is not vandalism then it should be done. If it doesn't work then someone will revert it, but give it a chance first.