On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 6:53 PM, Ian Woollard <[email protected]> wrote:
<snip> > The reason is that improving articles is going to get more and more > difficult; there will have been lots and lots and lots and lots of > really smart people that have polished those articles over many, many > years, and the chances of any random edit being an improvement is, > realistically, going down with time, particularly for FA articles. This is not true for articles where the "story" has not yet finished and updates are needed. I often use Hurricane Katrina as an example. This hurricane took place in August 2005. It was promoted to FA-level in June 2006 (over four years ago), but as time went by it was noticeable that no-one was really updating the article to include the ongoing legacy of this natural disaster. I would sometimes comment on this, but nothing much got done. It was defeatured in March 2010, with the discussion seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Hurricane_Katrina/archive1 The concerns expressed there didn't include "is the article up-to-date", but look at the article and ask yourself if it really covers in the detail you would expect, what the continuing impact on the area is? Maybe the information is in other articles? We have articles like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_of_New_Orleans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_engineering_and_infrastructure_repair_in_New_Orleans_after_Hurricane_Katrina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_New_Orleans_Back_Commission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_Architecture_and_the_rebuilding_process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_It_Right_Foundation_New_Orleans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_civil_works_controversies_(New_Orleans) Some of those articles are in a very poor state. My conclusion is that if I want information on how New Orleans and the surrounding area recovered and is recovering (or not) after Hurricane Katrina, and what the long-term effects are, I have to look elsewhere (i.e. not on Wikipedia), though there is some bits of it in these places: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans#Post-disaster_recovery "The Census Bureau in July 2006 estimated the population of New Orleans to be 223,000; a subsequent study estimated that 32,000 additional residents had moved to the city as of March 2007, bringing the estimated population to 255,000, approximately 56% of the pre-Katrina population level. Another estimate, based on data on utility usage from July 2007, estimated the population to be approximately 274,000 or 60% of the pre-Katrina population. These estimates are somewhat smaller than a third estimate, based on mail delivery records, from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center in June 2007, which indicated that the city had regained approximately two-thirds of its pre-Katrina population.[30] In 2008, the Census Bureau revised upward its population estimate for the city, to 336,644.[31] Most recently, 2010 estimates show that neighborhoods that did not flood are near 100% of their pre-Katrina populations, and in some cases, exceed 100% of their pre-Katrina populations.[32]" There are some hints of the population figures in the Hurricane Katrina article, but not much, mainly this bit in the economic effects section and this bit in the lead section: "Nearly five years later, thousands of displaced residents in Mississippi and Louisiana are still living in trailers. Reconstruction of each section of the southern portion of Louisiana has been addressed in the Army Corps LACPR Final Technical Report which identifies areas not to be rebuilt and areas and buildings that need to be elevated." Though to be fair, it is not actually that normal for natural disaster articles to go into the level of detail about the aftermath and long-term reconstruction as would be possible here. But it should be clear that articles about contemporary events need constant updating as the histories get written. Articles about the past, for which the major histories have already been written, only tend to need updating when new scholarship and histories are written, and that, I agree, does need careful integration with the existing articles. I sometimes think getting an article to FA-status too soon can impede its future development. There is a right moment to push for an article to get to FA level, and there is a wrong moment as well. Carcharoth _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
