I think you're misinterpreting your parent comment; I believe he's referring to the fact that to become a featured article you must go through an extremely rigorous process that definitely improves the article it's applied to (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_crit... ). You end up with a thousand or so articles a year (rough guess, I'm not active on Wikipedia) that have gone through some or all of this process, which makes a surprisingly large dent. Also, after being listed as a featured article, it's theoretically held to that standard in perpetuity (in fact, Wikipedia has a group of people dedicated to maintaining these). Next time you're reading an article that seems exceptionally well written and researched on Wikipedia, check its FA status.