This is a draft RfC. This page is not live.

This page in a nutshell: This is a proposal for a separate source review according to the two existing criteria before an article is nominated to FAC or FLC. The aims are to avoid wasting other compliance reviewing when sourcing is later found to be deficient, to highlight the importance of good sourcing practice at the forum, and to improve sourcing skills in the community.

Currently a nominated article may be declared to be of "featured" quality: through the featured article candidates page (FAC) or the equivalent page for lists (FLC). Both FAC and FLC require at least one review to address sources before a candidate can be promoted.

This RfC proposes a new, featured quality review process: featured quality source reviews (FQSR). The sections below give details about the process. Please add comments to the discussion section, and indicate support or oppose in the poll section below.

Any article may be nominated, and any editor may review any nomination. Each article must satisfy the following criteria (parentheses refer to bullet points in the featured article criteria):

• (1c): well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;
• (2c): consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)

Examples of source reviews currently conducted at FAC are here, here, and here.

Reviewers are expected to make it clear that they have fully evaluated the article on both criteria. They may either declare support or oppose, or wait for the article's editors to correct any issues before making a declaration.

A coordinator (there may be more than one) determines whether an article passes the source review. An article cannot pass unless at least one reviewer declares support. If more than one reviewer provides a source review, the coordinator determines if there is consensus to support. The coordinator may at their discretion ask additional questions of either the reviewer or the nominator, if they feel that either criterion has not been fully addressed. A coordinator cannot post a "Pass" or "Fail" for an article they themselves have reviewed. This RfC proposes that the initial coordinators will be the three FAC coordinators: Ian Rose, Sarastro1, and Laser brain. The community may choose new coordinators at any time.

An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only one article at a time; but two nominations may be allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them. If a nomination is archived, the nominator(s) should take adequate time to work on resolving issues before re-nominating. None of the nominators may nominate or co-nominate any article for two weeks unless given leave to do so by a coordinator; if such an article is nominated without asking for leave, a coordinator will decide whether to remove it. A coordinator may exempt from this restriction an archived nomination that attracted no (or minimal) feedback.

One of the goals of the RfC is to require the source review for a featured article candidate before the prose/MoS review. If this RfC passes, the same page structure will be set up with nominations on subpages, transcluded to a nominations page, and Hawkeye7's FACbot will be set up to automate the closing of nominations. This section of the RfC does not discuss FLC but of course the FLC community could choose to make some or all of the same changes to their process if this RfC should pass.

Currently source reviews occur as part of every successful FAC nomination. If this RfC passes, then once FQSR is set up and running:

• If an article is nominated at FAC without passing FQSR, a coordinator will remove the nomination.
• When an article is nominated at FAC, the nominator will be expected to identify any sources that are new since the FQSR passed. If these are too numerous, or support too large an amount of the article, the coordinator may remove the nomination and require a re-review at FQSR.
• Any new sources added since FQSR or during the FAC should be reviewed during the FAC. The detail required for this review is up to the coordinators and will likely depend on the importance of the sources to the article.
• "Spotchecking" is FAC shorthand for checking sources against the article text to ensure the text is supported by and does not plagiarize or too closely paraphrase the sources. Spotchecks are only required at FAC for first-time nominators or nominators who have been away from FAC for several years, though any reviewer can choose to spotcheck at any time. The same will be true for FQSR.
• Any FAC reviewer is free to conduct additional source reviews at FAC.

Minimizing wasted reviews: The main argument for a separate source review process is that it is pointless to review an article for prose or MoS compliance if the text is based on poor quality sources, or does not reflect what the sources say. Sources should be evaluated first. Here are some examples of FAC nominations that ultimately failed because of sourcing issues, but which absorbed much prose review time before the problems were identified:

• Bentworth, 2nd nomination. Six supporters, including some very experienced and capable nominators, before an oppose on sources by Brianboulton.
• Of Human Feelings, 1st nomination. Several reviews, including a long prose review, and a source review that did not include spotchecks, before an oppose on sources by Quadell.

Boosting source-review skills and input: Another argument is that few people volunteer to do FAC source reviews. Many editors contribute prose reviews, but FAC also depends on a handful of frequent source reviewers. A critical eye for sourcing is a key skill for Wikipedians, and we should encourage more people to contribute in this way. Separating the source review process and requiring each FAC nomination to pass FQSR first will make it apparent to FAC nominators that they must give back their time to both processes, by doing both source reviews and prose reviews. It will become much harder for nominators to argue that their prose reviews are sufficient contribution to the process. Sources are the basis of every Wikipedia article: evaluating them should be the most important skill for every content editor. Making a separate process for source reviewing will help prevent editors from considering sourcing as a minor detail: it will contribute to a cultural expectation that top-quality sourcing is required from everyone.