[WikiEN-l] POV featured articles?

Thu Mar 10 03:13:28 UTC 2005

I noticed that an article I considered POV just became a featured article:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_Soviet_Union

I've marked it NPOV, and have made several improvements, including a couple I made before it achieved featured article status.

How do articles become featured articles?  I've read Wikipedia:Featured articles,
and it talks about standards but not how the actual decision about the status is
made.  I looked at the nomination page, and there were only 5 supporting votes,
and zero opposing votes, before mine which I have just added after the fact.

I am not criticising those reviewers, they may not be sensitive to some of the
selection biases that can occur within articles or may have been unfamiliar
with the subject.  

I am however surprised that an article can become featured without far wider
review that hopefully would catch incompleteness or biases such as this.  I had
seen contributions to featured articles cited as feathers in ones cap, so I thought
the review must have been high.  Is there a minimum number of supporting
votes that are required?  
                -- Silverback