Re-examining Featured lists
Looking through the current FLCs, I see the same types of lists being nominated. I get the feeling that people are just reaching for the low hanging fruit and working on the easy FLs. [...] It's frustrating that people are aiming so low. In many cases, pages are created (some with questionable notability) and brought to FL, whereas I would prefer to see more users improve existing pages. And the reason we are getting so many FLs in certain topics is because of how easy it has become to get them promoted. The problem is that they seem to exist just so they can become FLs.
—Scorpion0422, [1]
In an essay titled "State of the FL process", Featured List (FL) director Scorpion0422 expressed concern about the overall quality of the FL process, saying the lack of a criterion that focused on stand-alone lists was a problem and that, although some lists were technically eligible for FL status, they did not need to be split off from the parent articles and therefore did not represent Wikipedia's "best work". He also attributed a decline in quality to a lack of Featured List Candidates (FLC) reviewers (an ongoing problem in other content review processes), lack of variety in Featured Lists, and, at times, lack of directorial oversight of the process.
In particular, Scorpion0422 highlighted two types of FLs that "hurt the process":
- "Easy FLs" – Lists that users nominate primarily to gain featured credits rather than for readers' benefit.
- Recreations of lists from parent articles – Sublists that recreate content of their main articles without providing further detail.
Featured lists that Scorpion0422 considered did not meet the current criteria are listed at User:Scorpion0422/FL audit, categorized according to issues. He posted the results at the FLC discussion page, noting that numerous FLs (nearly 20% as of 25 March 2009) did not meet the FL criteria at the time. Dweller, a former FL director, disagreed with some of the conclusions.[2]