SlimVirgin wrote:
It's rare that an article continues to get better
after being
featured, for example, but not unusual for it to deteriorate unless
it's watched closely. When I wrote that people should hesitate to edit
good prose, I meant precisely that -- not that they shouldn't, but
that they should ask themselves whether what they want to add or
remove really does constitute improvement.
Yes, but that's really a separate issue, I feel. Featured articles, only
0.1% of the articles, are almost by definition a "local maximum" for
writing. If you wanted a better article, it might need to be changed
around, not just pushed to the top of the slope. (The analogy is with
trying to get to a higher mountain peak, from the one where you are now:
you are going to have to descend before climbing.)
So I think David Gerard has a point; and FA, our star system for
articles, is as usual, a bit misleading as to the general needs of the
site. We do need factual content added, as a matter of course. We do not
need edits reverted as uncultured in writing terms, when they offer
content improvements. We do need, to go back to something Sarah brought
up, to parse "major copy edit" as "reorganisation" + "copy edit
as
tarting up", and in that order.
Charles