This week saw the English-language version of Wikipedia, the collaboratively written online encyclopedia, reach 2,000 featured articles with the inclusion of the article El Señor Presidente. Featured articles (FAs) meet Wikipedia's highest standards for quality, accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style, and thus are considered the best articles on Wikipedia. 
The Wikipedia team that carries out the assessment and quality control before conferring the status of featured articles promoted five articles to FA status at the same time: Walter de Coventre, Maximian, El Señor Presidente, Lord of the Universe, and Red-billed Chough. With five promoted at the same time, conferring the status of 2,000th on one is an arbitrary decision and in some respects any of these articles could actually make a claim to the honour.
The article El Señor Presidente was created and developed by a University of British Columbia class, "Murder, Madness, and Mayhem: Latin American Literature in Translation". While an important milestone, the 2,000th featured article is also symbolic of Wikipedia's growing role in the 21st century learning arena. 
The professor of the class, Jon Beasley-Murray, began using Wikipedia as a collaborative space where his students could both do coursework and provide a type of virtual public service. Thus, he created a Wikipedia project, Murder Madness and Mayhem, that focussed on creating articles relating to the Latin American literature covered in his class. Not surprisingly, El Señor Presidente is considered one of the most important books in Latin American literature, written by Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan writer, Miguel Ángel Asturias. 
The Wikinews team contacted Prof. Beasley-Murray, who agreed to be interviewed for this story. His responses can be found below. Included are sections soliciting responses from three students who took the class and helped create and bring El Señor Presidente to Feature Article status. Thus far the project has created seven good articles in addition to the 2,000th featured article.
 Professor Beasley-Murray, thank you for giving us some of your valuable time and agreeing to talk to us. Can you give some background on what prompted you to start this project?
—Professor Jon Beasley-Murray((WN))  Did you consult with fellow academics or students prior to launching this project?
((WN))  I would assume the Wikipedia community was in favour of your project, did anyone outwith that community make notably critical comments about your idea?
((WN))  How significant a percentage of the mark you were giving for the class came from Wikipedia contributions?
((WN))  As a member of the Wikimedia Foundation's communications committee I (Brian McNeil) frequently see both sides of the conflict over how relevant or reliable Wikipedia is. This ranges from queries coming in from students working on their school paper who want a response to their librarian and teachers effectively banning use of Wikipedia, to the other extreme such as a recent case where a teaching surgeon in the UK asking for permission to quote extensively from Wikipedia for a paper on the site's relevance and potential use for undergraduates in medicine. I have a stock answer detailing how to check Wikipedia sources; that Wikipedia is a great starting point for research, and that if you disallow Wikipedia you should disallow Britannica. Is this something you would agree with?
((WN))  Was the experience of using a wiki for collaboration something you would repeat? There have been suggestions for something you might call "EduWiki" for the collaborative development of course material. Would you get involved with something like that? Do you see potential for use of the MediaWiki software in other areas of education? Such a project could be hosted under Wikimedia Foundation projects such as Wikibooks or Wikiversity. Would you favour that over a closed project within academia where contributors' credentials could be verified?
((WN))  Would you describe your students as receptive to the idea of doing coursework where the general public could view their works in progress?
((WN))  Did any students fail to fit in and find themselves unable to work with Wikipedia?
((WN))  Do you feel that doing this part of the course in such a radically open way encouraged any of the students to work to a higher standard than the might otherwise have?
((WN))  In reflecting on the project, is there anything you would have done differently?
((WN))  You've hit about 6,000 edits personally, have you caught the "wiki bug"? Will you keep editing?
((WN))  In light of the apparent success of your project what would you say to other academics to try and persuade them to try similar experiments?
((WN))  Before moving on to bringing your students into the discussion, I'd like to close with your thoughts on making this a regular part of the curriculum. Do you intend to do so? Do you feel other institutions should examine your project with a view to emulating it?
 In addition to the one featured article, seven made "Good Article" status. How much of an encouragement was that to those of you involved in the project?
((WN))  How long were you involved with Wikipedia before you really felt Good or Featured was achievable?
((WN))  If you could improve the guidelines for people wanting to take articles up to Featured status, what would you change?
((WN))  Do you feel that having anything you did immediately viewable by anyone on the Internet encouraged you to aim for a higher standard than you might have with a more conventional paper that only the professor would see?
((WN))  Do you believe that contributing something to a 'digital commons' gives you more of a sense of achievement than just turning in a term paper?
((WN))  Have you caught the "wiki bug"? Will you keep editing?
((WN))  Assuming Professor Beasley-Murray repeats this project in subsequent years, what advice would you give to students following in your footsteps and starting on Wikipedia?
((WN))  Which would you describe as the harder 'marking authority'? Other professors where you've submitted conventional term papers, or the teams assessing Wikipedia contributions with a view to awarding Good or Featured status?
((WN))  Was there significant input from other Wikipedians not taking your course? If so, was this valuable?
((WN))  As a fairly open-ended question, would you see any use for wiki technology in any of your other study areas, or even where you may hope to eventually end up in employment?
 How did you feel when "El Señor Presidente" was made up to Featured Article (FA) status? Did you have a celebratory drink or a party?
((WN))  Were you disappointed that more of your articles didn't make FA status?
—Katy Konyk((WN))  Was getting the article up to that status harder than you expected?
((WN))  Does the lack of credit on Wikipedia concern you?
((WN))  Academia is often characterised as "publish or die". Do you believe the educational establishment should embrace Wikipedia or wiki technology as a way of making this publishing requirement less onerous?
((WN))  How has working on getting something to FA status changed your opinion of Wikipedia from that you held prior to the start of this project?
 I'd like to thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to help on this Wikinews article. Who knows? It too could end up featured.

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Wikinews interviews team behind the 2,000th featured Wikipedia article