Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/Archive 6

Archive 1

←

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

→

Archive 10

Everyone should install User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js

Hi all. Just dropping by to suggest that editors install the above script to their Monobook/Vector skin as appropriate. What is does is to highlight links to redirect pages, pages that are up for deletion and disambiguation pages by changing the colour of the displayed links from the standard blue. The last one is most useful, it identifies where a link does not go to the intended target and should be fixed before going up on the Main Page. I've sometimes caught these appearing on the main page and had to submit corrections at WP:ERRORS, this will help shortcut the process. I will be suggesting this to all editors involved in the FA and Main Page content processes. Regards. Zunaid 08:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Excessive vandalism campaign on Today's featured articles

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Excessive vandalism campaign on Today's featured articles. –MuZemike 22:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Admin help on TFA

Could an admin change "third powerplant" on the Grand Coulee Dam TFA back to "Third Powerplant" x2. Capitalized is proper per the Bureau of Reclamation's official name. I wasn't online when someone brought it up in WP:ERRORS.--NortyNort (Holla) 10:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Fixed.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

New TFA statistics page

I have created a new TFA statistics page at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Statistics‎ with the aim of identifying significant correlations. Please take a look and leave any comments at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/Statistics‎. Prioryman (talk) 02:34, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

why isn't there a way to link directly to the current TFA?

there are specialpages for 'random article' and 'random redirect', why not for TFA? 24.23.245.41 (talk) 19:21, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

We only let administrators alter what's actually on the main page, if that's what you mean. It is to make for a stable main page and avoid having vandalism show.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:24, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

If you're trying to add a link to whatever the TFA happens to be to your userpage (I think that's what you mean), {{Wikipedia:Today's featured article/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}}} will do it. – iridescent 19:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

He actually meant why isn't there a static link to the currently featured article, in a similar vein as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random 69.135.189.22 (talk) 06:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I would also love there to be a way to link directly to the current TFA, via a special: page. 76.15.203.174 (talk) 23:20, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Pattern to recent TFAs?

So, are we working through the P's in alphabetical order for any reason? Is this intentional, and if so, do I win the contest for being the first to notice? --Jayron32 00:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Nope, I noticed like an hour ago and considered asking, but figured it was just the way it worked out... Juliancolton (talk) 00:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but if you don't cash in the lottery ticket, you don't collect the money. I did ask first about the pattern... --Jayron32 05:49, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

See Talk:Main Page‎#Bias on the main page for a more detailed discussion and Raul654's response. --Allen3 ^talk 08:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Wrong TFA date

I was looking around and saw that the Anne Frank article was featured. Curious, I wondered what day it was featured. Clicking on the link, I noticed that it was the wrong article that was featured that day. Does anyone know if the article was actually featured on the main page? Thanks. Guy546^(Talk) 02:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It was featured on March 7, 2005. A practical method of finding this information is to check What links here for the article in question and restrict the namespace of displayed results to just the "Wikipedia" namespace. --Allen3 ^talk 02:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

USS Siboney (ID-2999)

USS Siboney (ID-2999) should never have been featured as it lacks a section on construction and design - a fundamental feature of all good ship articles. I hope this issue will not be overlooked when selecting future ship TFAs. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 06:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

TFA for 13 July

<copied from WT:MP> The blurb on Today's Featured Article, Somerset, is atrocious beyond belief. In my view, it ought to have been completely rewritten before making its way onto MP. Instead of making wanting to learn more about the county and inviting me to read the article, it is an utter turn-off. Not only is is covered in links which are of marginal relevance, I am certain there are hundreds of more interesting facts about Somerset that could have been used in the blurb. I would certainly question its focus – the boring geographical description is about a scintillating as a wet towel. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:05, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Protection for TFA of July 16

Somehow, todays's TFA, Mantra-Rock Dance, hasn't been protected from editing and is being subjected to a good deal of vandalism ever since it came up on the MP. Is this an administrative oversight or a change of policy? Regards, Cinosaur (talk) 02:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

In the past, featured articles were not protected except when the frequency of vandalism was extremely high (see former guideline). Although that guideline has been loosened, in practice the threshold for protection is still higher than for normal articles. Feel free to request protection at WP:RFPP. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:04, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Left a request there, as suggested. Regards, Cinosaur (talk) 06:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Issues

As well as massive overlinking (you know, things like "blood test", "vomiting", "confusion", even "intravenous", in today's offering—aren't these common English words?), I'm seeing a tendency not to gloss items that probably should be glossed in a short piece on the main page, for the majority of readers who don't click to the article itself (an even greater majority given the scattergun linking to diversionary topics, I must say). Two examples from later this month: "entomologist" in the opening sentence here, which I've glossed in parentheses ... is it ok? And letting readers know just where Zanzibar is here (I've glossed in a dependent phrase). Tony (talk) 11:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Manchester United F.C. semi'd all day as TFA

I don't think I've ever seen an article on the front page semi-protected all day. Any reason for it this time? Mr Stephen (talk) 00:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the article itself was protected... nothing in the logs says it was. And yet, there was no editing today. Cascading protection from something else? Resolute 00:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If I go through Main page -> Recently featured: Manchester United F.C., click on the article then click on edit I see the pink box stating with "Note: This page has been semi-protected so that only autoconfirmed users can edit it..." and if I log out and try there's no edit tab. Mr Stephen (talk) 00:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, lol. I missed the obvious. This article has been semi-protected since March 5. There was no recent protection, it has been in place for eight months! Resolute 00:55, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Zelda removed

I understand that I'm probably too late to change anything. But I don't see why the release of a new COD game has been given priority over the new Zelda. Is it just because Zelda comes out later?

The explanation I got was "list 3 similar articles for one day is unnecessary" only one was ever going to get onto the main page, it was just a case of take your pick. "the release of a new video game doesn't count as a "relevant date" people seemed ok with it in the case of COD, "all have zero to negative points" that's only because of the COD article.

I understand that we can't have both in such a short space of time and I also understand COD is a big series, I enjoy their games myself, but I would say Zelda is a bigger series. Shouldn't it big given priority? BUC (talk) 21:10, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Alert: system not working?

Hi folks. It seems that the system's not working.

Why is the contents of section Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article#Tomorrow's featured article red, i.e. why is said page empty?

Thanks in advance, Trafford09 (talk) 15:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that's not a fair statement. There is no deadline other than 2359. I am sure either Raul or Dabomb will be adding it in time. If not, we now have a procedure to select the first emergency blurb.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree (what time did we agree on for the bot? I thought it was 23:50, no?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, 2350. I think Ucucha was waiting a few days to assure consensus and all that good stuff.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:30, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually writing the bot will also take some time; and I'll need a new BRFA anyway. The bot won't be doing this tonight, that's for sure. Ucucha (talk) 18:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'm watching manually for now. When an open day is scheduled, I unwatch it, and re-watch the next open day. Until the bot is operational, I would love it if several other editors would do same, since I may forget to check with the busy holidays and a big party I'm hosting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I will make a point of doing that too, but I am away after the 17th and will have spotty internet. I appreciate your efforts, Ucucha; it all looks like black magic to me and it is good of you to spend your time waving your magic wand. If it seems to be getting close, Sandy has been pinging Raul and Dabomb and I will try to notice as well.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:53, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll be much more settled and relaxed after my big party on the 17th, so good on the mutual timing, Wehwalt! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems I was mistaken & all was well; sorry if I caused any undue alarm - I wasn't au fait with the way TFA works.

The beauty of WP! Trafford09 (talk) 04:37, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Quick Q on images for TFA

Someone at WP:MCQ brought up a good point: the image in today's TFA (File:At the South Pole, December 1911.jpg) is PD in the US but likely copyrighted in Norway. The image page is marked appropriately, and I don't think there's a problem with how it's used in the article itself. But in terms of being the Main Page, I know we avoid any non-free, but is it okay to be using partially universally free images (specifically if its free in the US to run off en.wiki servers)? It's not a legal issue or anything but more a moral one if we've vowed to keep non-free off the main page, and this could be considered as such. I don't see discussion of this issue on the request for this article at TFA/R but I might have missed it. --MASEM (t) 15:01, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Using TFA to gain attention for SOPA?

Hi,

Whilst discussions go on about whether to knock out the whole of Wikipedia as an act of lobbying, I was wondering what the reaction here would be to carry the Stop Online Piracy Act for a week on the Main page? Although this might upset our planned TFA selection, it would gain plenty of attention being the main landing page for the website. Unless there is strong objection locally, this question might be interesting to raise as a community wide RfC. --Fæ (talk) 16:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

First make it an FA; after that we can talk further. I'm not particularly happy with the idea of using TFA for advocacy. Ucucha (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course, if Wikipedia gets switched off for a week, this will include the Main page. Though I guess that's fairer as it does not single out TFA. --Fæ (talk) 16:48, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Egbert of Wessex picture

I just noticed Egbert of Wessex is shortly to be on the main page, so I took a look at it and found someone had put in a Victorian image of him which is quite inauthentic and has no historical value. I've removed it, but it's the image attached to the TFA blurb. I haven't dealt with TFA much so I don't know what the protocol is; could someone replace it with another image from the article? Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a preference for a replacement? Nev1 (talk) 22:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

No -- I just realized there was another equally weak picture in there so I removed that too. The remaining ones probably won't look good as thumbnails, so we could do without or go with the infobox image if you think that looks OK. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing that really leaps out as looking particularly good at 100px so I've gone ahead and swapped the 19th-century imagining of Egbert for the current lead image. The article's not due to run until the 19th so there's still time to change it. Nev1 (talk) 23:27, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that looks fine. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:12, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Rugrats photo

An article I wrote-- "A Rugrats Chanukah"-- is set to be on the main page on Dec. 21, and I noticed that a photo is not in the blurb yet. I'd like to add a menorah to it, but is it possible to add an image to the blurb that is not in the actual article? flash. ^[talk.] 22:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking a kids' one might be appropriate, but other people may well have views.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:01, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Links on TFA (has anyone suggested this before?)

I've been musing on ways of converting readers to editors in a way that facilitates editing and article improvement in a communal environment, and to that end have suggested this which I don't think will gain consensus for a trial. However, I did wonder on this after it was suggested by WFC there:

How about if we had a little box somewhere on the page for the 24 hour period a Featured Article was mainpaged - which said something along the lines of "Like this article? Try and improve (X,Y,Z)" where X, Y and Z are three articles that an editor who read about the Featured Article might be interested in improving. They might be intimately connected or somewhat tangential, but the common theme would be that they all needed substantial improvement. So for instance, if Oryzomys were Today's Featured Article, we might have a link to rodent, rat and black rat (the idea being that more readers might be able to add to them). Or something like that. The related articles would be chosen by consensus and the link removed after the 24 hour period.

My main idea is that alot of our broader articles (to me) stagnate if not improved as part of FA or GA process. Thoughts? Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:14, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Cas, this idea has some attractive features. Anything that gets more editors into the community, improving existing articles rather than the "create new article and dump" syndrome has to be good. It does mean exposing significantly inadequate articles on the main page, and suitable ones that are related to every TFA might be hard to find. Many DYK articles are already, by definition, in need of loving care. What about a note in the DYK section inviting people to contribute to that day's DYKs? Tony (talk) 12:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The key is trying to link to some broad and accessible articles -for instance, in the above example, other associated articles might be Hantavirus or one of the many other species of rodent mentioned. The average reader is unlikely to have material to add to these. Likewise many of my DYK noms see very little action there. Most DYK noms are quite specialised. Much better if we can somehow get people editing in pink, North Island and screwdriver all of which laypeople could add to. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. On a related point, I do believe the MP could be a much more inviting conduit into editing activities. The links we have at the moment don't offer any personal contact. They don't even ask potential newbies what areas they're interested in editing. Setting up a system of filtering expressions of interest into those that are worth allocating to a volunteer mentor would be a major step in the right direction (bot and human filtering combined, I believe, would work well). I'd certainly volunteer to take on one or two. The Foundation could help on the technical side. Tony (talk) 13:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Errr, I agree but others don't agree about hte MP. Hopefully more eyes will go there. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:22, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

April 1: discussion initiated

Interested parties may wish to contribute here. Kevin McE (talk) 14:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 5, 2012

What happened to "I will never use maps as main page images"? Raul is absolutely right; images like this are so meaningless at this scale, they're worse than no image at all. This particular one could be anything from a frito to a badly-drawn foreskin; what it definitely doesn't resemble is anything to do with 19th-century warfare. 188.28.122.143 (talk) 22:03, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Inappropriate inclusion of Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

The TFA's staff March 24th selection of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement was obviously too early to be an April Fool's joke, so its use as the marquee article of the day casts a cloud on the judgement of TFA staff.

Although most WP editors wouldn't deny its right to exist as an article in our works, a question of morality arises when TFA staff members decide to promote a fringe group dedicated to the eradication of humanity, an action that the vast majority of the world's people would very strongly oppose if polled, i.m.h.o. Your inclusion of the article as a TFA gives some moral credence to the nutbar running that lunatic sideshow. A similar misguided decision was a large public library's display of a biography of Adolf Hitler (amongst two dozen or so books) under a banner for 'Famous People'. Was Hitler 'famous', or 'infamous'? Hitler was famous, but for all the wrong reasons obviously, and promoting him alongside of people who worked for the betterment of humanity, including Nobel laureates and scientists, reflected questionable judgement.

Your staff's selection of VHEM as a marquee article now calls your sound judgement into question. What were you thinking of? HarryZilber (talk) 16:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Linking to this article

How does one link to "Today's Featured Article"? Is there a direct way? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

This link will lead to the TFA blurb for today: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 25, 2024. This link will lead to today's TFA article: A Very Trainor Christmas. Ucucha (talk) 20:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Page protection

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 18, 2008, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 10, 2007, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 2, 2009, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 4, 2008 + the Saxbe fix TFA page remain protected while the majority of my TFA pages are not protected. What is correct?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:16, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Why a video game on Mother's Day?

I asked the wrong place first, so ask here: the DYK section is playing nice music for Mother's Day, Music for Our Mother Ocean. For TFA, I would not have expected an article specifically related to the day, but a topic most mothers would rather like, something about children, a poetess, a flower, music (the one mentioned, MOM, is also not directly related), you name it, - but not a video game, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Who's to say that mothers don't like video games? Mine would beat my brother and I at Tetris on the Nintendo Game Boy playing head-to-head. (It seems that she would play while we were in school and had a lot more practice time than us!) We just had an actress of stage and screen featured on the 105th anniversary of her birth, so running another biography today would have prompted some questions too. Our FA director and delegate do a pretty thankless job, but if you have suggestions on what to run, nominate them beforehand. They appreciate the suggestions. Beyond that, Mother's Day isn't universally celebrated on the same day in every country. For instance, it was last month in the UK to fall on the fourth Sunday of Lent. Several countries celebrated it in March according to Mother's Day#Dates around the world. Imzadi 1979 → 21:34, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! In the DYK section, Mother's Day was certainly celebrated today, with some related hooks in three sets ;) - In order to suggest something beforehand, I would need to know FAs that have not been featured yet, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Each section of the Main Page is scheduled independently though. WP:FA lists all of the currently featured articles, and I believe those that have been on the Main Page are indicated in bold by default. (I could be wrong because I have a piece of coding in my account's CSS that places the links to articles that have been on the MP in green instead of blue.) Barring that, the talk page of any FA will indicate if it was a TFA and for what date. I hope that helps. Imzadi 1979 → 22:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:FANMP is the place to see what's yet to be TFA. Bencherlite^Talk 22:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, interesting list, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:15, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Criticism of writing of today's entry

See, Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/May 23, 2012. Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Images and fair use

Is there a solid reason the FA snippet on the main page doesn't include the main infobox file when it is a fair use image? 76Strat ^String da _Broke da (talk) 02:16, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

We just don't put fair-use images on the Main Page. Imzadi 1979 → 04:19, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for that reply. 76Strat ^String da _Broke da (talk) 04:30, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

TFA

First day of the Olympics, and the featured article is Hurricane Vince!!!!! Terrible decision. 2.28.96.100 (talk) 00:06, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Brilliant prose?

"The history of Michigan State University dates to 1855"... no it doesn't. It goes back to 1855, it began in 1855, but histories do not date to specific years (unless you mean history books, such as Herodotus' "History of Michigan University" dates to the year he wrote it). A similar mainpage howler was the statement that "The Olmec Colossal heads consist of at least 17 stone representations" they do not consist of that, they are 17 stone representations, what they consist of is basalt. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:40, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The list of TFAs is on the Main page. It's called archive, but looks into the future also. Everybody can check there and improve - best before appearing, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:22, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Today's FA defines a massacre against Chinese as a "pogrom" - in spite of the fact that our article on pogroms define that as violence against Jews in imperial Russia... And there is no source for the usage of "pogrom" about the Batavia massacre. And the article title is "massacre" which suggests that the most common description of the event is "massacre" and not "pogrom".·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:04, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Repeating: best before appearing. TFAs are scheduled until 16 September, you can read now and improve ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I realized what you meant now. And looked ahead. I didn't see any howlwers. Maybe they only really stand out once the articles are on the mainpage.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

You could do something truly useful: look at the blurbs of the scheduled articles and improve right there, because that it is what will be seen by most readers right on the Main page. Ideally, it should summarize the article and still be coherent. In the past, sometimes it was simply what happened to be the beginning of the lead - not ideal ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:41, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, once you spend a ton of time working on an article you get totally blind to obvious issues (or I do at least), which probably means that Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 12, 2012 reads like a third grader wrote it. Mark Arsten (talk) 22:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Main page TFA rewording

A discussion at T:MP has resulted in two changes: (1) the TFA section is now headed "From today's featured article" and (2) the "more..." link at the end has been changed to "Read the full article". I neither participated in nor closed the discussion; I'm just notifying you of the result. Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 21:03, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

TAFI being deployed to Main Page on April 15

This is a notice to let you all know that Today's articles for improvement will be deployed in just under twenty-four hours. For those who have not been following the developments of the section, it will be placed on the left side of the Main Page, beneath DYK, as at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow. This should not affect TFA substantially. Comments and questions should be directed to Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement. -- tariqabjotu 00:15, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

TFA's and vandalism

Why aren't TFAs fully-protected on their showcase day to prevent them from being the target of so much nonsense vandalism? It would just make sense, rather than to make most of someone's day removing the work of idiots who insert "poop" and "shit" and "gay" on an almost non-stop frequency.--ColonelHenry (talk) 18:04, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for comments on the Main Page

The 2013 main page redesign proposal is a holding a Request for comments on the Main Page, in order to design an alternative main page based on what the community asks for. As this may affect your project, I would encourage you to leave feedback and participate in the discussion.

Evad37 (talk) (on behalf of the 2013 main page redesign proposal team) 00:33, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Today's featured article page selection

Who determines what article will be featured for the day, and how can I contact them? Thanks! Jlamro (talk) 16:52, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

There is a small team of people empowered to make the decision; sometimes articles are nominated at a requests page and other times we (for I am one of the team) just pick 'em ourselves. Feel free to stop by my user talk page, Jlamro, if you have a question. Bencherlite^Talk 20:47, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

New guideline: Home page diversity

Can we implement the common sense guideline that home page content should show a diversity of material? Today we have yet another fungus article. Though our editors may be fascinated with video games, mushrooms, and Gibraltar, must we reflect these fascinations on the home page? Could we not try to create a balanced home page that has a bit of everything in proportion to various topics significance, rather than reflecting the momentary fascinations of our editors (or more darkly, the effects of contests or viral marketing campaigns such as Gibraltarpedia)? Jehochman ^Talk 11:22, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

An interesting idea. Just to help me understand how this would work in practice, please define "significance", and (from the list at WP:FANMP) please indicate which FAs listed there are "significant" and which are not, to start with. Perhaps you could also look back at the TFAs since the start of the year and say which ones should not have run, and which FAs should have run in their place. You might also be interested in my breakdown of the numbers at User:Bencherlite/TFA notepad#Going just by the numbers... from which you will see, for example, that if TFAs were selected solely in relationship to the numbers of FAs remaining in each category, we would have had about 9 video games as TFA since January instead of the 5 we have actually had, about 21 sports articles instead of the 13 that have run. In contrast, art/architecture and literature (for example) have been "over-represented" in the last six months, going purely on the proportions on un-run FAs in each category. Bencherlite^Talk 11:43, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

We seem to have a lot of mushroom TFAs. That's the only issue I've noticed with TFA. With DYK there's a lot more room for abuse because the review process is much thinner and there's not much in the way of central coordination, the way there is with TFA. Also, we need to look at the home page as a whole unit, not just manage each area as an independent silo. Jehochman ^Talk 12:00, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We already do. See the 'Main page representation' points on WP:TFAR. See also the relevant FAQ entry. Modest Genius ^talk 11:56, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

• My spidey senses are tingling. This is not a criticism of mushrooms or video games. The irony is, of course, that Gibraltar is decidedly underrepresented at TFA. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:00, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

• I've just come from a similar discussion at DYK. I did some stats for FA this year and there are clearly recurring topics including biographies, species, warships, videogames, &c. My impression is that these reach FA status more easily because they are well-defined in scope. We have a list of vital topics which is supposed to direct our efforts. But, in a volunteer operation, we can't use a stick to make this happen. We need some more carrots. Warden (talk) 12:02, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, that was why I revived Wikipedia:The Core Contest..... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:04, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

• The core contest might work for some people but, me, I'm not going to enter a contest that I know I'm going to lose. If you explicitly have winners and losers then the losers are going to be demotivated and wander off to find something that's more fulfilling. Collaborative models to consider include: barn raising and the round robin. Warden (talk) 12:30, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

• The issue with that would be that some fairly core articles (using the contest's definition) are also very specific. For instance, Sukarno needs some serious heavy lifting which a lot of editors would be unwilling or unable to do. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:13, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps next time somebody nominates a warship (one of my favorite topics!) we could schedule it rather far out and drop a few hints about topics that are under-represented and see if somebody would like to work on them. Jehochman ^Talk 12:07, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps folks might ... try writing/polishing a vital article up to FA standards before they start complaining. Having just recently done two ... it's hellish and long and tedious and not much fun at all. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:00, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Re Jehochman's comment above that "We seem to have a lot of mushrooms TFAs". That's five to you and me. At the start of the year, there were 30 fungi FAs awaiting their turn at TFA; there are now 37. There were 182 biology unused FAs at the start of the year; there are now 187. In other words, people have written, and are continue to write, mushroom and other biological articles in numbers faster than they are being used at TFA. Mushroom articles are being used in proportion to the supply available. I await Jehochman or someone else telling me how many mushroom articles TFA should have run, what articles I should have run instead, how many mushroom articles I can run in the rest of 2013, and therefore what class of articles should be comparatively over-represented instead.

And then Colonel Warden seems to be complaining that we have too many biographies on the main page! About 25% of articles at WP:FANMP are biographies, so of course we're going to have lots of them per month. Videogames? They're run less frequently than their presence at FANMP would require on a strictly proportionate basis - and the same's true of hurricanes, another old chestnut, before anyone mentions them. See further User:Bencherlite/TFA_notepad#Going_just_by_the_numbers...

I really am surprised that, of all the topics at TFA, it's mushroom articles that are getting the flack. Mushroom articles have several advantages for the main page and for me as the primary TFA scheduler at present: we have a good supply of them, so I don't need to eek them out through worry that we're about to run out; they tend not to go out of date, so picking even an older mushroom FA does not require a lot of clean-up for the primary author(s) before TFA day; they are often about a subject that is found across several continents, or one that is found in areas for which TFA does not have many possible articles, thus helping geographical diversity (Fomitiporia ellipsoidea, today's example, is from China - we don't have many China-related TFA possibilities, as it happens); they tend not to be controversial articles prone to edit-wars before or on TFA day; and no-one (until this blew up) has to my knowledge complained about having too many mushroom articles on the main page. I would have thought that they were a solid encyclopedic topic to boot.

It's easy to forget that TFA is not the sausage factory – it is merely the sausage delivery company. TFA can only work with what it's given. The volunteers making the sausages in the factory make whatever flavour sausages they want. We try incentives (the TFAR point system to encourage under-represented topics and vital articles, for instance) but we cannot dictate to the producers. All that the delivery company can do is choose the order that the sausages are delivered, one flavour per day. If people want luxury red wine and herb-flavoured, bacon-wrapped sausages, of which there is only a very limited supply, then we effectively have to ration them, otherwise they'd all be gone in a week and our customers would have overgorged. We have plenty of plain pork sausages, and most of the time you have to eat them, like it or lump it. If people want more luxury sausages than they are getting, they need to go into the factory and help make them. Unfortunately, luxury sausages are very difficult and time-consuming to make, and only a few people have the time and energy to make them (and thereafter keep them in presentable condition). Now some sort of sausage has to be delivered daily, come rain or shine, one sort only. And, of course, our customers helpfully disagree about what flavours they want, whether it's been too soon since they had that particular flavour, and what counts as "luxury" and what counts as plain pork. And when given the option to help pick which sausages should be supplied sooner rather than later, only a comparative few do.

"Also, we need to look at the home page as a whole unit, not just manage each area as an independent silo." I'm afraid I don't really follow the implications of this for TFA, which is what this talk page is about. Bencherlite^Talk 17:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Great, now I want to eat some sausages, but we don't have any in the house. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 18:34, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

We'd need a set of rules for second-run TFAs. Eligibility would involve, perhaps, the following [re-edited by Tony1]:

1. the FA was a TFA no more recently than five [four?] years before the date of application for a second run;
2. the FA must be from an area that has been under-represented among TFAs;
3. an FA with a suitable image for TFA is slightly preferred among applicants for a second run;
4. where appropriate, the FA must have been significantly updated and improved to modern standards;
5. there is a proportional limit on second-run TFAs so as not to crowd out opportunities for new FAs [what proportion?]; and
6. there is a limit of two runs.

Tony (talk) 08:43, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I would be more supportive of a five year wait, but yes this seems a good idea. Just because a much more basic version of the article was TFA back in 2005 or something shouldn't disqualify the current version from appearing. Only upon request though, and only if significantly improved. Going through FAC again would be a reasonable requirement. Modest Genius ^talk 13:36, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

That sounds really good. TFA should be available for re-runs after some number of years. This would encourage maintenance of our best articles. Jehochman ^Talk 15:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

That's encouraging early feedback. I'd like to hear people voice possible objections, to know at some stage what Bencherlite and Raul think, and if the environment suggests there might be consensus for second-run TFAs, to refine a proposal and put it as an RfC. I suppose the two advantages I see are to provide greater scope for maintaining a balance of FA topics over time, and a motivational process for improving older FAs.

Some thoughts on the four points above: (1) Perhaps my three years (above) was a little short, so I added "four or five". (2) Could we gauge how hard it would be to define the under-represented—and thus eligible—fields? (3) How do people feel about favouring re-runs that have a suitable image for TFA? (a point I'd be willing to drop if there's significant opposition), and (4) What would be the least burdensome way for the community to approve the quality of a revamped second-run TFA nom? On the last point, the possibilities could be (a) to insert into the FA review instructions the option of nominating an FA for review with the explicit goal of gaining eligibility for a second-run TFA; or (b) renom. at FAC (painful and draining on scarce reviewer and delegate resources is my concern there); or (c) some kind of process at the TFA queue itself. I haven't thought through most of the pros and cons for these options. Tony (talk) 15:54, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment - images in TFA blurbs

I would like to have a discussion about the use of images in TFA blurbs in circumstances where a free-use image of the subject is not available, or where the available free images are of less illustrative value or relevance than would be ideal. I would also like a discussion on whether Raul's principle for choosing images (set out below) is in need of modification or rewording, with a view to adding some wording about the image to the TFA instructions page. How far should we go in finding a free image for a TFA blurb (since fair-use images are not allowed on the main page)? Where do people draw the line between "no image" and "some image"? (Incidentally, I regard these issues as independent of any main page redesign issues - whatever the main page looks like, it is still going to have a TFA section and there will still be a need to decide what (if any) images should accompany the blurbs.) A bit of background for you:

• Raul's principle for image selection is this:

A main page image should convey the topic of the FA with as much specificity as possible, even if you took all the rest of the text away. For this reason, I will not use maps as main page images and generally will not use country flags, except when the country or flag itself is the FA topic.

• The image in a TFA blurb is generally 100px; this number will sometimes be larger e.g. when the picture is in landscape orientation, but increasing the image size too much means that TFA ends up taking more than its "fair share" of the main page, throwing off the balance. I will sometimes crop an image to help make its contents clearer at this size, but sometimes the image cannot be usefully cropped and then it becomes a choice of using another image or no image.
• I will generally try and use the lead image in the article as the TFA image, but this will not always be possible e.g. because of fair-use problems or the image's appearance when viewed at TFA size.

Specific examples of instances where there are potential problems or where has been recent discussion (e.g. at WP:TFAR or WP:ERRORS) of whether to use any image and if so which include images for video games, images for hurricanes, and images for biographies where there is no free use photograph. Another area where the lack of fair-use main page images gets in the way is TV/film FAs, since we can't use promotional photographs or screenshots; sometimes we can use free photographs of the actors. Is this a good idea or not? I have set up some sub-sections below to start things off, but feel free to rearrange or add new sub-sections. Bencherlite^Talk 16:24, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Video games

Most (if not all, I've haven't checked all of them) FAs about video games have fair-use images of the game and / or its display box, which cannot be used. There was a recent discussion at WP:TFAR about these three alternatives which sets out various arguments. Which one do you think is the best option? What principles should we use to decide? Bencherlite^Talk 16:24, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Option 1	Option 2	Option 3
Final Fantasy XI is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), developed and published by Square as part of the Final Fantasy series. Designed and produced by Hiromichi Tanaka, it was released in Japan on May 16, 2002 for Sony's PlayStation 2, and for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers in November of that year. The game was the first cross-platform MMORPG and the Xbox 360's first MMORPG. The story is set in the fantasy world of Vana'diel, where player-created avatars can both compete and cooperate in a variety of objectives to develop an assortment of jobs, skills, and earn in-game item rewards. Players can also undertake an array of quests and progress through the in-game hierarchy and thus through the major plot of the game. Since its debut in 2002, five expansion packs have also been released along with six add-on scenarios. In 2006, between 200,000 and 300,000 active players logged in per day, and the game was the dominant MMORPG in Japan. Final Fantasy XI has a user base of around 500,000 subscribers, and the total number of active characters exceeds 2 million. It is the most profitable title in the Final Fantasy series. (Full article...)	Final Fantasy XI is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), developed and published by Square as part of the Final Fantasy series. Designed and produced by Hiromichi Tanaka, it was released in Japan on May 16, 2002 for Sony's PlayStation 2, and for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers in November of that year. The game was the first cross-platform MMORPG and the Xbox 360's first MMORPG. The story is set in the fantasy world of Vana'diel, where player-created avatars can both compete and cooperate in a variety of objectives to develop an assortment of jobs, skills, and earn in-game item rewards. Players can also undertake an array of quests and progress through the in-game hierarchy and thus through the major plot of the game. Since its debut in 2002, five expansion packs have also been released along with six add-on scenarios. In 2006, between 200,000 and 300,000 active players logged in per day, and the game was the dominant MMORPG in Japan. Final Fantasy XI has a user base of around 500,000 subscribers, and the total number of active characters exceeds 2 million. It is the most profitable title in the Final Fantasy series. (Full article...)	Final Fantasy XI is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), developed and published by Square as part of the Final Fantasy series. Designed and produced by Hiromichi Tanaka (pictured), it was released in Japan on May 16, 2002 for Sony's PlayStation 2, and for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers in November of that year. The game was the first cross-platform MMORPG and the Xbox 360's first MMORPG. The story is set in the fantasy world of Vana'diel, where player-created avatars can both compete and cooperate in a variety of objectives to develop an assortment of jobs, skills, and earn in-game item rewards. Players can also undertake an array of quests and progress through the in-game hierarchy and thus through the major plot of the game. Since its debut in 2002, five expansion packs have also been released along with six add-on scenarios. In 2006, between 200,000 and 300,000 active players logged in per day, and the game was the dominant MMORPG in Japan. Final Fantasy XI has a user base of around 500,000 subscribers, and the total number of active characters exceeds 2 million. It is the most profitable title in the Final Fantasy series. (Full article...)

• Prefer Option 3: has encyclopedic relevance to the subject of the featured article and does not misrepresent the logo. More attractive than two words in black text. Option 1 acceptable, although not preferable. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• I'd say Option 2, followed by Option 3, but not option 1, please. — Cirt (talk) 17:06, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 2 because its more descriptive than the other two. Option 3 and 1 are equally bad - One is confusing and the other doesnt look nice. I give a slight preference to 1. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:22, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 2 if possible, for example a logo ineligible for copyright, as this one is. Second choice would be Option 1. Option 3 is bad all around, as I don't like using a tangentially related picture next to a blurb just to have a picture. Blurb pictures should be about the subject exclusively. If the picture is of a person, the TFA should be about that person. --Jayron32 18:23, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Logo of what? That's certainly not the logo for FFXI — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
    • In this specific case I would agree, since this is a logo for the series and not the specific game that was chosen. This particular logo would make more sense on the series article than here. That said if a logo for a particular game (I am talking about games in general not this one specifically) was available then I would have no issue.--174.95.111.89 (talk) 23:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
      • I'd accept text if it did not misrepresent the game's logo. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:04, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
• I would agree with Cirt; Option 2 followed by Option 3. Both images are useful and illustrative; I don't see anything confusing about option 3. Image 3 is far from being tangentially related to the subject of the article; the designer and producer of a video game is integrally linked to that video game, just as an author is to a book. My preference would be strongly against Option 1 considering that two valid, relevant images are freely available. Neelix (talk) 18:27, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 3 conveys the human side of this - the creator of it, and makes it more than just a game review. Our top aim is to engage the reader, so I find option 1 the worst for this. I'd be happier with option 2 in this case. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 2 - I had to put up with some real POINTY bullshit in the discussion linked above, with the ridiculous claim that having no image at all was more attractive and eye catching. And whereas I accept Bencherlite's good faith close, it is the worst possible option. Crisco sure is glad though. The series logo is more recognisable, eye catching and representative of the subject than a photo of its first producer. As per User:Raul654/Featured article thoughts#Selecting the image - Option 2 would "convey the topic of the FA with as much specificity as possible, even if you took all the rest of the text away". Without the blurb, you're left with Final Fantasy, with it, you get to Final Fantasy XI - that's fairly close, and a lot better than previous video game TFAs. - hahnchen 12:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Addendum - There's only 12 hours left, but I think you should switch the main page to option 2. - hahnchen 12:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
• The best option isn't here: allow fair-use images providing a suitable rationale is given. There's no reason why the images can be used in the article, but not a slightly shorter summary version of the article. Of the three existing options, option 2 is best. Modest Genius ^talk 12:46, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
  • That's not true of article summaries on portals, lists, userpages, the Signpost or anywhere else. I'm not sure why you think it's so obviously true when applied to article summaries on the main page. The main page is there to showcase our finest work- if the finest work of a free content encyclopedia is non-free, we're not doing a great job... J Milburn (talk) 15:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
    • IMO, a relevant fair-use image is better than an irrelevant free one. Besides, we're doing an even worse job if there's no relevant image at all. To address your other point - it would be difficult or impossible to write a valid fair-use rationale for those locations. Not so for the Main Page. Modest Genius ^talk 15:23, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
      • You're making vague, hand-wavey claims. You say "There's no reason why the images can be used in the article, but not a slightly shorter summary version of the article." Yet, then, you seem quite convinced that "it would be difficult or impossible to write a valid fair-use rationale for those locations" that do present summaries of articles, apart from the one in question (though no explanation of why this one is different is provided). J Milburn (talk) 16:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
        • Just my opinion - I don't think it would be difficult to write a valid fair-use rationale for an image used in TFA, but I don't think one could be written for use in an image gallery on a user page. There are obviously intermediate cases, I don't know where exactly the line would fall. Nor do I particularly care - the question is how best to use images on TFA, not what other uses are also valid. Modest Genius ^talk 13:48, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 2, but option 1 if it the logo isn't free. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
• My first and preferred choice is option 3. However, I'm also fine with option 2 if that is used. Command and Conquer Expert! ^{speak to me...}_{review me...} 15:08, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
• Option 3. I think that not only is the photo of the game designer relevant, but it sparks a further curiosity about the topic. For me at least, I would be very likely to go ahead and read about him when I am done reading about the video game (or even before if I am familiar with the game). Failing option 3, I would prefer option 2 over option 1. Zell Faze (talk) 00:47, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Hurricanes

I initially selected this blurb without an image because I thought the main satellite image did not look good in the blurb; a request was made at WP:ERRORS and one was added. Which do you prefer? What principles should we use to decide? Bencherlite^Talk 16:24, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Option 1

Option 2

Hurricane Debbie was the most powerful cyclone on record to strike Ireland in September. The fourth named storm of the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season, Debbie originated from a well-defined tropical disturbance that was first identified in late August over Central Africa. Tracking generally westward, the system moved off the coast of Senegal on September 5 into the Atlantic Ocean. On September 6, Debbie passed through the southern Cape Verde Islands as a strong tropical storm and resulted in a plane crash that killed 60 people. Thereafter its location was uncertain until September 10 and on the following day, Debbie attained its peak intensity as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale, with maximum winds of 120 mph (195 km/h). Gradually weakening, it passed over the western Azores as a minimal hurricane on September 15 and skirted the coast of Western Ireland on September 16 as a powerful storm. It brought record winds to much of the country, with a peak gust of 114 mph (183 km/h) measured just offshore, causing widespread damage and disruption, killing 12 people (and a further 6 people in Northern Ireland) and caused US$40–50 million in damage. (Full article...)

Hurricane Debbie was the most powerful cyclone on record to strike Ireland in September. The fourth named storm of the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season, Debbie originated from a well-defined tropical disturbance that was first identified in late August over Central Africa. Tracking generally westward, the system moved off the coast of Senegal on September 5 into the Atlantic Ocean. On September 6, Debbie passed through the southern Cape Verde Islands as a strong tropical storm and resulted in a plane crash that killed 60 people. Thereafter its location was uncertain until September 10 and on the following day, Debbie attained its peak intensity as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale, with maximum winds of 120 mph (195 km/h). Gradually weakening, it passed over the western Azores as a minimal hurricane on September 15 and skirted the coast of Western Ireland on September 16 as a powerful storm. It brought record winds to much of the country, with a peak gust of 114 mph (183 km/h) measured just offshore, causing widespread damage and disruption, killing 12 people (and a further 6 people in Northern Ireland) and caused US$40–50 million in damage. (Full article...)

• Prefer Option 1: greater encyclopedic value than not including an image at all. Sure that'll never reach FP, but then again neither would many images. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Prefer Option 1: agree, this will help draw in attention for the incoming readers. — Cirt (talk) 17:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 1 but with a larger image. If possible, retouched to make sure its clear enough to readers too. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:23, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 1 is fine. It does render itself out as "Generic hurricane pic" every time, but at least it is always of the hurricane in question. --Jayron32 18:24, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 1 - The image is illustrative of the subject. If the concern is that the image appears generic, I would argue that the blurb looks far more generic without the image. Neelix (talk) 18:29, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Anything but option 1 - personally when I see another "oh no not another vague swirly thing" on the front page, I instantly switch off. Even no image is better than that. IMO, the best option (though not one available for the Hurricane Debbie article) is to have some picture of the hurricane as seen on the ground - e.g. trees in the wind, etc. - or a photo of the devastation afterwards. But please, no more satellite swirls! An optimist on the run!   22:43, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 1 is I like - it is actually the hurricane written about and is hence encyclopedic. Just like when I have some scraggly shrub or dingy mushroom on the main page :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 1 serves to illustrate the subject. Whilst the individual hurricane cannot be recognised (especially at 100px), it does clearly show what type of article this is. Modest Genius ^talk 12:47, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 1 Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
• Option 1 or "some picture of the hurricane as seen on the ground" - Although the "some picture of the hurricane as seen on the ground" suggestion from Optimist on the run is a good idea, I disagree with the rest of his sentiments. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:44, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
• In my view, TFAs with suitable pics should be preferred by some kind of weighting system to minimise the grey-text problem on the main page—and sorry, but it's just too bad for FAs without pics. Option 1 here brings up another significant problem on the main page: the images are ridiculously small. I would not approve this smudge of dirt and grease on the main page, unless it were enlarged so we can see what it actually is. Tony (talk) 08:36, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
• Option 1 I agree with the sentiment that it at least illustrates what type of article the featured article is. I would rather have a poor image (most of the time) than no image at all. A wall of text neither gets peoples attention nor does it allow for quick identification of the topic. Zell Faze (talk) 00:49, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Biographies

Alternative approaches used to avoid the issue of no free-use person of the image include these. Which, if any, do you have particular views about, for or against? What principles should we use to decide? Bencherlite^Talk 16:24, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Coins	Grave	Signature
Aldfrith was king of Northumbria from 685 until his death on 14 December 704 or 705. He is described by early writers such as Bede, Alcuin and Stephen of Ripon as a man of great learning. Some of his works and some letters written to him survive. His reign was relatively peaceful, marred only by disputes with Bishop Wilfrid, a major figure in the early Northumbrian church. Aldfrith was born on an uncertain date to Oswiu of Northumbria and an Irish princess named Fín. Oswiu later became King of Northumbria; he died in 670 and was succeeded by his son Ecgfrith. Aldfrith was educated for a career in the church and became a scholar. However, in 685, when Ecgfrith was killed at the battle of Nechtansmere, Aldfrith was recalled to Northumbria, reportedly from the Hebridean island of Iona, and became king (coin pictured). In his early-eighth-century account of Aldfrith's reign, Bede states that he "ably restored the shattered fortunes of the kingdom, though within smaller boundaries". His reign saw the creation of works of Hiberno-Saxon art such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Codex Amiatinus, and is often seen as the start of Northumbria's Golden Age. (Full article...)	John Le Mesurier (1912–83) was an English actor perhaps best remembered for his comedic role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the BBC situation comedy Dad's Army between 1968 and 1977. He debuted on stage in 1934, and became one of television's pioneering actors when he appeared in The Marvellous History of St Bernard in 1938. From there, Le Mesurier had a prolific film career and appeared in over 120 films across a range of genres, normally in smaller supporting parts in comedies; his roles often portrayed figures of authority such as army officers, policemen and judges. He took a relaxed approach to acting and described himself as a "jobbing actor", a term he used for the title of his autobiography. On one of the few occasions he played the lead role in his career, he received a British Academy of Film and Television Arts "Best Television Actor" award for his performance in the Dennis Potter television play Traitor. He later said that his parts he played were those of "a decent chap all at sea in a chaotic world not of his own making". After his death (grave pictured), critics reflected that for an actor who normally took minor roles, the viewing public were "enormously fond of him". (Full article...)	Adrian Boult (1889–1983) was an English conductor, known for championing British music. His first major post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. Appointed director of music of the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1930 and knighted in 1937, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which was regarded as among the best in Britain under his chief conductorship. On retirement from the BBC in 1950, he took up the position of chief conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and, in what was widely called his "Indian Summer", continued to conduct it until his retirement in 1978. He gave the first performance of his friend Gustav Holst's The Planets, and introduced new works by other British composers including Bliss, Britten, Delius, Tippett, Vaughan Williams and Walton, as well as foreign composers such as Bartók, Berg, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Webern. A modest man who disliked the limelight, he felt as comfortable in the recording studio as on the concert platform and made recordings throughout his career, many of which have remained in the catalogue for three or four decades. Prominent conductors influenced by him include Colin Davis and Vernon Handley. (Full article...)

• Non-photographic representations of the person are acceptable, and I don't mind gravestones. Signatures are... a little iffy. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• All three are totally fine by me. All of the above listed options are preferable to no picture, in order to help draw in the attention of the reader and potential future editors to the encyclopedic content therein. — Cirt (talk) 17:09, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Signature's good. Coins, probably not. Gravestone is likely to be alright, I think, but I dislike the current photo used because of its lack of clarity. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:23, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Honestly, don't like any of them. Of course, non-photographic representations (being scultures, engravings, pictures of the person themselves on coins, paintings, whatever) are all fine by me, but signatures, non-representational art (including coins that don't bear their likeness), or gravestones seem to me to be just decorative. I'd rather not have any picture at all. If we're going to have a biography of a person as TFA, then the picture should be some form of their likeness. If such a picture does not exist (or one cannot be used because of NFCC reasons) then I'd rather have no picture at all. --Jayron32 18:27, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• All three images seem like good options to me. The coins (in this case), a gravestone, and a signature all are intended to indicate a specific person. I don't see why they wouldn't indicate that specific person here on Wikipedia as well as in their original context. We had ways of refering to specific individuals through visuals long before we invented photography. Neelix (talk) 18:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Coins are good, signature okay, not much liking the gravestone. Isolated artworks in general preferable to more cluttered real photographs of related objects, I think. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:52, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• All three of these examples are deceased, so we should use a fair-use photograph or painting of the subject. None of these examples are good options - they neither identify the subject nor improve the appearance of the blurb. Modest Genius ^talk 12:49, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
• Coins are obviously suitable for an article on a king like Aldfrith, as they are literally as close a representation of them as we have. A signature would probably be suitable for a writer- I can picture the signatures of Tolkein or Blyton or Christie sooner than I can picture their faces. I can't oppose the use of non-free content enough. I would sooner see one of my own FAs unillustrated on the MP than illustrated with non-free content. J Milburn (talk) 15:01, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
• Coins are fine with me (same reason as J Milburn), as are signatures because they're unique. The gravestone is terrible, because we'll have green with an unreadable white block in the center nearly every time. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:28, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
• All three be fine, but I prefer the signature. I would say that of the three, I least like the gravestone. Perhaps if there was something unique about their grave it would be better, but as is, this picture tells me scarcely little about the topic beyond that he is dead, though if it is what is available, I'll take it. The coins are nice because they give you another topic to read about when you are finished, but perhaps a better item could be chosen? For some reason I find the situation with the coins different from that of the game designer. Of the three I prefer the signature as it conveys what the article is about very well and is a good replacement for a photo of them. Zell Faze (talk) 00:54, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

General discussion

• I think that we should generally focus on the encyclopedic and attention grabbing value of an image when selecting images for TFA blurbs, rather than pure aesthetics. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• I strongly agree with this point by Crisco 1492 (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 17:12, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• I'd just like to kick in that, while I know I am probably in the minority, I'd support using fair use images as a tfa image under certain circumstances, as was common place a few years ago. Just throwing that out there.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

  You're not the only one who thinks this. Is it worth reconsidering the question of whether we allow fair use images on the front page? The only argument I've seen against it is that "Jimbo doesn't want it".[1] Whilst this should have a bearing, it shouldn't be the only factor in the decision. Any use of non-free images would have to be controlled, e.g. by ensuring that the image didn't appear in the alternative main pages, etc., (a template should be sufficient to check the page the image was being reproduced in), and only used where there is no suitable image in the article in question. An optimist on the run!   22:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

  Jimbo's opinion should count for no more than any other editor, even less if he doesn't actually join the discussion (we would probably need an RfC). WP:AAJ. Modest Genius ^talk 15:27, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

  Well, I certainly oppose this idea. I'd definitely rather see my own featured articles unillustrated than illustrated with non-free content. There are many good reasons for disallowing non-free content on the main page- most striking, for me, is that the main page is about recognising and displaying Wikipedia's finest work. If the finest work of a free content encyclopedia is non-free, then we have a problem. J Milburn (talk) 14:55, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• I think there's a general conflict between two problems, and they are 1) Images grab someone's attention and there's a general desire to have some eye-grabbing bit of color to draw the reader's attention towards the article and 2) The image should be highly relevant to the TFA. For my self, #2 is the most important criteria, so much so that I'd rather there be no image than have an image which is marginally relevant to the TFA merely to have one. In nearly all cases, the TFA image should be the image of the subject of the TFA itself, excepting when we have a TFA on a very broad, nebulous concept (like, say "Economy" or "Biology"), in those cases I would be a little more forgiving on tangentially related pics, but for stuff like a Biography, I want an image of the person themselves. That sort of thing. --Jayron32 18:31, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I would agree that there are two main opposing views on this subject, but I would argue that you haven't fairly represented the two positions. I don't think anyone is advocating just adding any random tangentially related image just so the blurb will look pretty. There is a "relevance" scale along which we all seem to fall, ranging from requiring extreme relevance to accepting minimal relevance. I was once fairly extreme on the "accepting minimal relevance" end, but I would think of my position as more in the middle now; I would not require the extreme relevance you advocate, but would require significant relevance. For example, if a TFA is about a television episode, an image of the episode's director or one of the main actors would seem to me to be sufficiently relevant, but an image depicting one of the concepts dealt with in the episode would not be sufficiently relevant. Neelix (talk) 18:46, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I think I could better explain it this way: The image should always be visually representative of the subject itself and not merely related to it in some way. For the video game example above, an image of a developer of the game, even the lead developer, in no way visually represents the video game. You can play every single minute of the many-hundreds-of-hours of Final Fantasy gameplay, and never see the above picture. That's why its a bad representation. On the other hand, for an article about a TV show, an image of one of the lead actors would be a good image because we see said actor's face prominently in every episode (not true, however for an animated series). The issue should always be "does the image visually invoke the subject itself" not "is the image related to the subject". That's the key distinction. --Jayron32 18:53, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• How about directors? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:41, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I would argue that someone who has played the video game all the way through and never met the person responsible for making the game has not fully experienced the game. I would also argue that even a screenshot of the game is not representative of the game itself in the manner you suggest; the screenshot is not the game. The game is a concept, an idea, just like the subject of any article. No image fully invokes any subject; every image is only related to subjects. What we differ on is the degree of separation we think acceptable, or, phrased otherwise, the degree of relevance required. Neelix (talk) 19:01, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

It's not my opinion that the practices or principles of Raul require consensus to change, though it is wise to take the opinion of the community. It is simply how he did the job. He is not doing the job anymore. They are instructive in many ways, but they are not policy or in any way binding on Bencherlite, who is presently doing the job. TFA is filled with rules, and they are often confusing. I should not like to see more matter, such as repeated and lengthy RfCs, for the person interested in being a part of this to plow through. This seems a useful one to have, however.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:45, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

As a general question, is there any way, since the 100px is awfully small, to have the image enlarge if rolled over? Or clicked on without leaving the page? Would it be practical, and are there drawbacks (I personally hate rollover ads, and would not want us to be associated with that).--Wehwalt (talk) 04:22, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

You can right click and choose Open link in new tab or Open link in new window. The page you're looking at stays right there, and the image is open next door. HiLo48 (talk) 05:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. I was thinking possibly an easier way.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:49, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

On the user end, there are a number of browser extensions (I use one) that will enlarge embedded images when you hover over them. I am sure we could do the same on the wikipedia end with a bit of javascript, but I am guessing adding anything like that to the homepage would probably be controversial with certain sections of the editing community. Might be a nice thing for someone to make as a user gadget though. AlasdairEdits (talk) 21:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• The use of tiny smudges of images that no one can discern without a strong magnifying glass should end. The real-estate competition between the five forums on the main page should end. We need a main page arrangement that presents the most effective image or images large, probably at the top, which means someone has to manage and ration a fair distribution of pictures among the forums, day by day. At the moment there's this policy of trying to please everyone all the time. It wrecks the main page and forces stupidly tiny images on a website that needs to update to the 21st century. Tony (talk) 08:41, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Use fair use images

I see several assertions above to the effect of "We have to use shitty images because we can't use the fair use images". Why? There is no legal reason we would not be able to use the fair use images in 99% of cases. Is it just because we have some policy somewhere that says "don't use fair use images outside of articles"? If so, let's amend it to add TFA as an exception. Kaldari (talk) 00:52, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

That'd require an RfC, but if there's no legal reason against it, do we know why the policy was crafted like that? I'm tentatively in favor, but I'd like to see the original reasoning first. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

It's purely because many years ago Jimbo once removed a fair-use image from the TFA (relating to Scooby Doo if I remember correctly), expressing the wish that free images be used instead. Explicit mention of the Main Page was then removed from what is now WP:NFCC and it's carried on ever since. As far as I am aware, there was never a proper discussion or RfC, just a lot of WP:AAJ. Modest Genius ^talk 12:59, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

If that's all there is to it, I'd be in support of allowing fair-use images on TFA as well. Neelix (talk) 14:12, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I seem to recall someone mentioning some sort of WMF resolution that was passed after the Scooby-Doo incident, but I don't know whether that's accurate. If it isn't, I agree that the prohibition should be lifted. —David Levy 14:28, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the resolution you're referring to is this one, which brought in the requirement for projects to have a specific policy (ours is WP:NFCC) and to delete all files without valid fair-use rationales. I can't see anything in it that would stop the English Wikipedia from using fair-use images on the Main Page, providing the relevant rationales were written and the usage complied with WP:NFCC. Note that the WMF resolution was a few weeks before Jimbo's intervention in the Scooby Doo TFA. Modest Genius ^talk 00:39, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I thought that someone cited a subsequent resolution, but I'm far from certain that one exists. —David Levy 02:00, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh and the Main Page is conveniently located in article namespace already, so is already covered by NFCC. The stumbling block is all the TFA sub-pages which are in Wikipedia namespace. Modest Genius ^talk 00:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

The main page's location within the article namespace is a vestigial technicality with no meaningful significance (Raul's past citation of this supposed loophole notwithstanding).

If no WMF policy prevents it, we should revise WP:NFCC to explicitly permit limited use of non-free images in the TFA section, including transcluded subpages. (I don't believe that the appearance of fair-use images in the main page's other sections is justified.) —David Levy 02:00, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. Neelix (talk) 16:56, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Modest Genius ^talk 23:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I've hunted down some of the history, and there are three major discussions here, here, and here. A lot of the arguments point to the wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy, which doesn't really cover this case at all. So, if we're going to move ahead with this, we're going to need an RfC. People aren't going to accept a unilateral change to five years of established practice. Should it be held on WT:TFA or WT:NFCCE? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we should start an RFC on this. I think it should be done in WT:NFCCE. Mohamed CJ (talk) 11:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Wow, I'd forgotten all about that first archive link. Well at least I tried. Modest Genius ^talk 22:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. Fair use images go against the one of the very founding and core principles of Wikipedia, in that they cannot be freely used. Putting them on the main page, aside from putting a mile sized crater through 'limited use' (remember that many people transclude sections of the main page to their user pages, and the main page is emailed around in various forms), this goes against what (at least should be) a core principle. Using non-free images shouldn't be a petty thing. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:11, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Sven, it would be fantastically trivial to code up a <noinclude>-like template to only show the image on the main page and in no other namespaces, and while I agree that free images should be used where possible, we have a greater mission to our readers as an encyclopedia. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:27, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

The concept of a majority of entries in an encyclopedia being illustrated is incredibly new. Somehow, in the hundreds-years long history of encyclopedias, everyone that predated Encarta was able to grasp complex concepts without the use of images. Non-free images should not be (despite the alleged comment by Jimbo advocating the contrary) an entitlement. And honestly, if someone can't be bothered to click "(Full article...)" to be taken to the full article (where the non-free images already are), they're not going to get a deep enough understanding of the subject matter for our "greater mission to our readers" to matter. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be more appropriate if we had this conversation at WP:NFCCE. Ed, you recommended having a discussion there. Would you be willing to initiate that? Neelix (talk) 14:01, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

@Neelix:: see Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#RfC:_fair-use_images_on_the_main_page_on_a_.28very.29_limited_basis. Please advertise the discussion wherever you think is best (WP:CENT?) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:06, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, this is going down quickly. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:04, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

• The RfC was closed as no consensus, which is a shame. I guess we should now reassess the various options above. Modest Genius ^talk 13:28, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The blacklist

"Raul654 maintains a very small list of featured articles that he does not intend to have appear on the main page."

Is this list available to inspect? — Scott • talk 16:33, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious about this also. I know that Jenna Jameson is on this list, but that's the only entry that I'm aware of. Have any of the other articles ever been mentioned publicly? --Bongwarrior (talk) 02:27, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

After looking through the archives, I noticed this discussion from 2008. He mentions two articles: Jenna Jameson, and Wikipedia (a former featured article). I have no idea if there have been any additions to that list in the interim. --Bongwarrior (talk) 02:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Update now. There is no reason to continue perpetuating the Theater of the Absurd, towit, that Raul is still dictating anything in his former FA fiefdom. There should be nothing secret and nothing banned from the front page.PumpkinSky talk 22:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

If memory serves, The Story of Miss Moppet and London Necropolis Company should also be considered to be blacklisted from the main page. Mark Arsten (talk) 22:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

If it helps, I would not select London Necropolis Company, based upon the recent discussions; and I'd have to check what the current state of play was re copyvio issues in the history of Miss Moppet before deciding that one. There are some other articles in the list of FAs yet to appear that I'd be reluctant to select off my own bat without community consensus behind me (and no I'm not going to say what they are - WP:BEANS and all that!) but perfectly happy to select if there was community consensus for them to appear.

As to whether/when/how to update the instructions here and elsewhere, this post is interesting reading. When consensus is still developing at the RFCs (should there be a director or not? What do we call the people who do the work? etc) there is no urgency to change instructions here. If anyone ends up at Raul's talk page by mistake and misses the {{User longterm inactive}} notice, well, lots of people (including me) have his page watchlisted and will answer the question or point the enquirer in the right direction. Bencherlite^Talk 23:24, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

One of the things that is near unanimous in all this is that Raul is gone as is his personal feifdom. There is no reason no to go ahead and remove his name from all this. Some other points are in debate. No FA should be blacklisted just because of its topic, though I agree some should not be if its contents are not up to snuff (poorly maintained, refs out of date, copyvio issues, etc). PumpkinSky talk 23:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

RFC proposing an adjustment to the governance of featured-article forums

Community input is welcome here. Tony (talk) 11:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Raul

Could we change the text on the project page?

"Raul654 maintains a very small list of featured articles that he does not intend to have appear on the main page. If you notice a problem with an upcoming main-page featured article, please leave a message on the user talk page of Raul or one of the delegates."

Is the text I am referring to. Given that Raul's talkpage notes he hasn't edited since February, perhaps it is coming to the time when WP:FA should, move on?

I usually wouldn't have a problem with this but this text pertains to some secret list kept by an inactive user, and tells people to contact said inactive user. Perhaps we could change it to refer inquiries to this talkpage? ★★RetroLord★★ 09:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

As and when the current RFC closes, various pages/instructions will probably need to be updated. This is one of them. There is no urgency to do it before the RFC is over. Bencherlite^Talk 12:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, this should be updated ASAP, regardless of the RfC, as it's clear that Raul is incommunicado, and not doing as he was supposed to. Secondly, no single editor should have a veto over community consensus. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:55, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Update now. There is no reason to continue perpetuating the Theater of the Absurd, towit, that Raul is still dictating anything in his former FA fiefdom. There should be nothing secret and nothing banned from the front page. PumpkinSky talk 22:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Passing thoughts on date relevance

Disclaimer: I have no FAs to my name, very little experience in TFA (though I have at one time or another been active on three other Main Page sections), and am wary of rocking the boat too much in an area I have minimal involvement in.

Modesty over. I notice that the current TFA is 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix. A fine Formula One article, worthy of being read any day of the year, but I can't help thinking that last Sunday would have been the optimum day for featuring it (to coincide with the 2013 edition). It may be that another article was specifically chosen for an anniversary on the 28th (I haven't checked, but if so that of course takes priority), but where this is not the case, perhaps the date relevance criteria should be taken a little bit more liberally? —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 18:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Harold Davidson was nominated at WP:TFAR for 28th July as that's the day on which he was attacked by a lion, which isn't a bad date connection. The 2008 Hungarian GP was nominated at WP:TFAR for the 5th anniversary of the race; nobody (including me) noticed the date of the 2013 event. Bencherlite^Talk 15:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The week of George?

Is there something called the week of George, since all the TFA's that are scheduled between the 25th and 29th of October are biographies that starts with some variety of the name George? If this is just an coincidence, wouldn't it be better to spread these TFA's out a little? Mentoz86 (talk) 09:23, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Funnily enough, it's not a complete coincidence that we have a number of Georges in a row. Two of them (Georges Bizet and George Herriman) were suggested at WP:TFAR, and some comments started about the near-identical first name (e.g. "possibly minus a couple points for having too many Georges in one week", "nice article and it'll be nice not to have a George or a beard!", so I decided to run with this idea and find a few more George-related articles to demonstrate the variety of featured articles. So over five days you have a French classical composer, an Australian airforce commander, an American Pentecostal minister, an American cartoonist and a female British novelist. I could have kept going (search for "George" at WP:FANMP to see what other articles could have been used) but something else was nominated for 30th October and 5 days of biographical articles on the trot, albeit it from a range of topic areas, is probably enough. Over the years (before and during my time as TFA selector), TFA has set up these little asides for a bit of variety (and to see who's paying attention) - Raul scheduled several articles in a row with the same initial letter on at least one occasion, and earlier this year we had a few articles in a row with "Eagle" in the title. Does that explain things to your satisfaction? Bencherlite^Talk 13:36, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Just noticed this at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 2013.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Helps me. I find it kind of funny that Giorgi just got elected in Georgia, too. 1.202.44.32 (talk) 05:19, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

{{Mainpage date}}

Template:Mainpage date (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion. -- 70.50.148.105 (talk) 03:08, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

No it hasn't. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 00:57, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 December 4. Bencherlite^Talk 01:05, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah. My bad. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 01:08, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

If anyone wants a good case for page protection for TFAs...

So, my article Samuel Merrill Woodbridge is TFA today. Wasn't long after the calendar came to 11 December...and it wasn't an IP user, it was a named account (‎Marshavoc) that decided to not only vandalize the Woodbridge article but the related New Brunswick Theological Seminary and Reformed Church in America articles. Sure, it was reverted--but there's no serious reason to have to put up with this bullshit. On TFA day Wikipedia isn't the encyclopedia anyone can edit--because in several years I've never seen a case where an article was drastically improved beyond a few overlooked misspelled words or missing commas--TFA day makes Wikipedia the encyclopedia anyone can vandalize thanks to consensus to not make a decision on the matter.--ColonelHenry (talk) 01:46, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

• BTW, I must thank Taylor Trescott and Mark Arsten for their vigilance and fixing Marshavoc's misguided efforts.--ColonelHenry (talk) 01:51, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Update...TFA day is only half over...and now 1/3 of the article's entire edit history is devoted to repairing today's vandalism. Yay page protection! Wait. Further thanks to EricEnfermero, HMSSolent and George8211 for fixing some of the vandalism efforts in the last few hours. --ColonelHenry (talk) 14:51, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Are all articles eligible to be Featured someday?

That question is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria#Articles on notable subjects that are not eligible for featured status. Please weigh in on the discussion there. Imzadi 1979 → 18:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Is it time to revisit the protection status of the article featured on the main page?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Some discussions recently have led me to ponder this - do people really think we get editors from tinkering with the main page? Is the potential benefit of this worth the risk of visitors finding a vandalised page? How often is there a beneficial edit to a mainpage featured article (or any featured article for that matter) from an IP?

Keep as is (i.e. default is unprotected, with certain pages protected for varying reasons)

1. Vandalism is reverted quickly, and unwanted stylistic changes are easily fixed. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
2. no evidence has been presented that the current system doesn't work. We can always institute protection on a case-by-case basis as needed, but I find no reason to protect all main page articles before it is clear there is a problem.--Jayron32 23:46, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
3. per Jayron32. I have done the occasional reverts as far as my time permits, in order to keep it generally unprotected, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:27, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
4. Please don't use pending protection here. That's worse than protecting the article as it will make people think that is how Wikipedia works. As always, we should protect once it's clear there is a problem. Hobit (talk) 15:01, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
5. This is the way wikipedia works. We are the encyclopedia anyone can edit. Not the encyclopedia that anyone can edit unless the article has been deemed good enough or is in the public eye. If problems develop with an article, then short-term protect it by all means. But let's not throw out the entire spirit of wikipedia to save the vandal fighters a few reverts. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
6. Per Jayron32 and Tazerdadog. -- Ypnypn (talk) 19:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
7. I was in favor of PC1 until I read Hobit's comment: we definitely don't want to be giving the wrong impression here. I may support PC1 if an elegant way to let newbies know it is not the natural order of things is proposed. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:09, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
8. I'm here because the highest number of votes right now is for the pending changes option, and I dislike pending changes. Is there a problem with TFA vandalism? You bet there is. Is PC ever a good answer for anything? I still believe not. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:48, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

   This is a discussion about TFA, not about personal crusades for or against PC. Regards, —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 04:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

   WFC: My opinion is still valid. Among all of the options presented, keeping it unprotected is the best one in my opinion. Full and semi-protection are too restrictive, and PC is a place where edits go to die and new users get to experience the community's astonishingly strong general lack of trust for each other before they get a taste of any redeeming factors that Wikipedia has. That I dislike PC means that I am less likely to support its use in discussions like this, but doesn't mean that I haven't weighed all of the options. I'm not on a crusade, I'm not out to remove it from the project, but I'm also not going to actively support its use. Regards, Sven Manguard Wha? 17:20, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

9. Vandalism gets reverted extremely quickly (if not subtle). It hasn't been shown that the current system does not work. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 02:56, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
10. I think the benefits of having TFA as a gateway for new editors far outweigh the extra work. wctaiwan (talk) 20:26, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
11. FAs need less protection than other articles because their status ensures that they are closely watched. And they are not so wonderful that they can't be improved. Looking at the current FA, I reckon the first paragraph would benefit from some copy editing. Warden (talk) 23:48, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
12. Until someone draws up some actual statistics showing that this is a problem, and that vandalism goes unreverted, this is the better option. Away from the main page, vandalism can remain unreverted for hours. I was surprised recently to see that our article on the Whitehall Cenotaph remained in this vandalised state for two hours on 11 November. Does vandalism on a main page TFA ever last for more than a few minutes, and is even that too long? Carcharoth (talk) 01:54, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
13. This is a bad idea for two reasons: it actively breaks the way people would expect Wikipedia to work, and it's a good example of not broken / don't fix. Now, if strong actual (non-anecdotal) evidence emerges to show that there is a real problem, I'd reconsider, but this doesn't look to be one of those cases. Bfigura ^(talk) 02:10, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
14. No evidence the current system is not broken. The FA is not necessary the most viewed page, improvements are always needed and in my view vandalism quickly reverted. Also oppose Pending Changes, which would lock out the editors who took the page to FAC/TFA. Edgepedia (talk) 07:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

    The last sentence is simply not true. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 04:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

15. Per Crisco. Legoktm (talk) 03:26, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
16. PC is a great idea, but it's much more useful for pages that don't get substantial amounts of attention. When lots of people are paying attention to an article, vandalism gets removed more quickly. It's rare that any vandalism will last more than a few minutes (at worst) with TFA. I've seen and fixed plenty of errors (grammar/syntax/spelling/etc.) in TFAs, and we really shouldn't prevent new users from being able to fix such pages. Protection should never be applied to TFAs (except of course for move protection), except as a way of stopping vandalism in progress. 2001:18E8:2:11BD:4C05:6D67:59C0:2182 (talk) 01:16, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

    Oops, I forgot that I was logged out. Please don't disrupt the page history by requesting a revdel, because I don't mind the IP address being visible; it's not my own address, anyway. Nyttend backup (talk) 01:19, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

17. Protection should always be used as a response to issues, not as a default state. Resolute 17:27, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

    And the issue we are responding to is constant vandalism on Today's Featured article all the time. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 21:51, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

18. I think semi-protection by default is a bad idea because a lot of edits to the TFA are well intentioned, if not necessarily useful, and living with those is part and parcel of editing on this project. I think PC1 by default is a bad idea because TFA is highly watched: knowing that an edit will be responded to quickly puts the balance in favour of reverting bad faith edits rather than forcing good faith contributors to wait for a babysitter on the page they are most likely to try and edit that day. I could support PC1 by default for TFA BLPs, because in response to Carcharoth, in that specific instance even a few minutes could well be too long, yet at the same time I wouldn't want to go as far as stopping good faith newbies from editing. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 04:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
19. If an open editor pool can't have a net positive effect on Today's Featured Article, what can it help? Let's be clear: TFAs are not on a pedestal - nobody but their WP:OWNers believes that. I've edited them while they were up many times. And there is no article more likely to be read by good faith IP users who just want to try to improve something. Just because they might foul up is no reason to miss the chance that an expert we'd never have had weigh in on something any other day might show up and throw us a lead. One revealing truth matters more than a hundred vandals, because we can't mechanically revert our way to enlightenment. Even vandalism is not entirely a bad thing, in the sense that it reminds readers that this is an open resource and they need to do their own fact checking and critical thinking. We shouldn't want people to have so much respect for Wikipedia that our articles can "ruin lives" because the audience doesn't imagine we could be wrong. We are not seeking to argue from authority - we are seeking to enlighten from cited sources. And last but not least, I loathe Pending Changes and do not want to present that flawed mechanism as our face to the world. Wnt (talk) 01:27, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
20. Per Wnt's eloquent comment. I think we put FAs on a pedestal that some, perhaps many, fail to merit. The current review process is often sadly bereft of any kind of subject expert critique and if a IP editor expert happens upon an article and improves its accuracy, that's a positive of the TFA system. Also for encouragement to good-faith newbies, even if all they do is tweak commas. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:38, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
21. TFA is a perfect recruiting ground for new editors: Not people who already know how to edit, not people who come to en.wiki to look up some specific item and then close the browser pane, but those who simply enjoy browsing and might perhaps want to improve something that they stumble across. Protecting means shutting the door on new editors. I would be happy with protection as a response to specific problems, but not as a general rule. bobrayner (talk) 17:43, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
22. Keep default protection, if the article is unprotected, then leave it unprotected. The featured article has many eyes on it, as well as those monitoring recent changes. Wikipedia does not pre-emtivily protect pages, and doing so for the featured article sends the wrong message. wrt. pending changes, PC is unsuitable for articles being edited many times a minute/hour. PC creates problems with logged in users editing sections when a logged out user/IP has made an edit to a different section. This is fine with a few edits a day, but not on today's featured article, or current events etc.Martin451 21:02, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
23. If it is already protected, it may need to stay that way for unrelated reasons, but we should not default protect TFA. We should be encouraging editors to edit, and especially to edit existing articles rather than making their first edit a creation. We deal with vandalism just fine, and TFA is a highly watched article. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:08, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
24. Adding PC or semi-protection to TFAs that aren't under attack is unnecessary and just erodes Wikipedia's credo, "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Altamel (talk) 01:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
25. Preemptive protection is never justified --W. D. Graham 11:19, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
26. I believe this is a necessary evil. I could get behind full-protection, but semi and PC seem to run contrary to "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". (I realize that full-protection runs entirely contrary to it; I'll be glad to provide a detailed rationale on the odd chance it gets a significant amount of support.) Joefromrandb (talk) 06:19, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
27. TFA should never be protected unless there is really no other way. I actually believe it is a good thing if people see vandalism on Wikipedia every now and then: it reminds them that this is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, not necessarily containing only trustworthy information. As I am ashamed of the existence of something as terribly anti-wiki as PC, I definitely do not want it used on our showcase articles. —Kusma (t·c) 09:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
28. Part of the reasoning behind having a featured article is encouraging readers to become editors. NE Ent 03:42, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Pending changes

1. Let's be honest, if an article goes on the main page as the featured article, it is going to be vandalized on 95% of occasions at least. However, pre-emptively semi-protecting or full-protecting goes against the way Wikipedia is supposed to be run. Pending Changes, however, is perfect for this particular role (even if I don't rate it generally); good edits can be allowed, regardless of who made them, whilst the obvious vandalism gets nowhere near the article. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 12:40, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

   Actually, per WP:PROTECT#When to apply pending changes protection, pending changes protection should not be used as a preemptive measure either. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:38, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

   I'm aware of that, but there's a clear difference here; Pending Changes fully maintains the "allow anyone to edit" ethos, whilst also preventing obviously unhelpful things from appearing in articles. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 18:14, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

2. Support - allows all the inevitable rubbish to be filtered, while keeping the article in good shape and potentially allowing anyone to edit. At the moment when one of the FAs I've worked on gets scheduled for TFA my reaction is "sigh...here we go again..." Simon Burchell (talk) 13:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
3. Now that I understand what "Pending Changes" means (I had to look it up – I've added a link so that other ignoramuses are not likewise confused), I'm inclined to support this option on the pragmatic grounds that it stands a minimal chance of being accepted, whereas I don't think that semi or full protection ever will be. It will be a small help; my instincts are entirely with Ealdgyth's as expressed below. Incidentally, my invariable rule, when an article I have toiled over is TFA, is to avoid it like the plague for its 24 hours of glory, then quietly clean up when the tumult and shouting has died. This way, my blood pressure remains fairly normal, and I have time to consider the added edits and to discuss them, if necessary, with their perpetrators editors. Brianboulton (talk) 00:13, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
4. Support PC1 - People can still edit but vandalism won't be visible. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 00:43, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
5. Support - This seems to be the best of both worlds option. Keep protected from vandalism while allowing edits. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:58, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
6. Support. A needed change. Everyking (talk) 02:23, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
7. Support - maintaining the integrity of our content while it is featured in a high traffic location is an important process, but we must maintain our goals. ViperSnake151  Talk  15:24, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
8. Support PC2 to prevent vandalism, which will occur in spades, from being visible. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 16:21, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
9. TFA is very nearly paradoxical. Wikipedia is the site anybody can edit, and our showcased pieces should exemplify how well that model works. On the other hand, our showcased articles are also pretty much complete, having been scrutinized for accuracy and quality of presentation. Is the TFA an example of a "complete" entry—which, theoretically, could be fully protected when on the main page—or just a sample of the wiki model, which favors no protection at all? I think it's a combination of both. Somewhere along the lines, WP's mission shifted (or should have, anyway) from proposing a social experiment to creating a respected, high-quality base of information, though obviously our goals will always comprise some mixture of both ideologies. In that sense, I think implementing PC on all TFAs is extremely prudent in that it conveys a sense of academic rigor while still upholding the traditional "anyone can edit" theory. Certainly vandalism linked from the main page, even if for a few seconds, needs to become a thing of the past. I like to think we've matured beyond that. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:44, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
10. Support PC1 because it allows people to contribute, but makes sure no vandalism with turn up on the FA. -- Ross Hill • Talk • Need Help? • 01:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
11. Support - on one hand, we don't want the first rticle a newcomer sees (after seeing that this is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit) be a page which (s)he can't. On the other hand, we don't want this article to be vandalized, either. With PC, the vandalism is less visible, but anyone can still edit the article. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu
12. Support. To quote myself: 'Think about it: when people tell you they don't like Wikipedia, do they say, "There was one time I couldn't edit an article so I never used it again"? Of course not. They say, "Any idiot can edit it so I don't trust it." Because, on their first visit to Wikipedia, they clicked on the featured article and saw nothing but a page full of "suck my dick" or "Jimbo is a pedophile" written a thousand times. We lose more potential editors when that happens than we ever will by semi-protecting an article for a day.' This seems like a fair compromise. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 21:38, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
13. Support - Today's featured article is probably the most prominent article on Wikipedia. It is the article that readers first see when looking at the home page. It's our first impression. This has its ups and downs. On the upside: It showcases an article which the community has agreed is one of the best. Today's featured article is the first place where aspiring editors can go to offer good-faith edits. Unfortunately, editors who aren't here to help the encyclopedia target this page first. In my eyes, vandalism is so inevitable on TFA articles that preemptive protection—just for one day—is necessary. However, one of our goals is to attract more good faith contributors. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia 'that anyone can edit'. It doesn't make sense to completely lock up our best pages and prevent them from being free and open. Pending changes is the option in the middle: it allows editors who wish to truly contribute to do so, but protects the encyclopedia from anonymous or non-confirmed vandalism. Sure, vandalism is easily spotted and reverted, but pending changes allows reviewers to revert those bad edits before they appear on the page we call our best. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
14. This strikes me as the best compromise between putting on our best face for the readers while still allowing editors an opportunity to improve TFAs if they see a weakness. We would substantially lower the risk of vandalism appearing in what readers see, and the article will still be open to editing. If we're going to have pending changes, this seems like a logical use for it. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:18, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
15. Support PC1 Vandalism won't appear, yet IPs can still edit if they find a weakness. buffbills7701 12:30, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
16. Support, great idea, logical and sensible. — Cirt (talk) 18:22, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
17. Support definitely the best option. --LT910001 (talk) 03:53, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
18. Support a good compromise between allowing new or curious users to edit the page, and exposing readers to (persistent) vandalism. TheGrappler (talk) 03:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
19. I am at once sympathetic towards and miffed by the attitudes of those in the protection camp. We've all come across an article that's been vandalised. I remember years ago there was some project or other to publish Wikipedia offline, and when I clicked on (I think) their archived version of France it had been defaced with the words NUCLEAR BAGUETTE. Having something like that be someone's first impression of Wikipedia isn't what we want. At the same time, language like "my article" and comments like "Is it really THAT important that idiots can change things on an article..." completely miss the point of what Wikipedia is. Anyway, pending changes seems to work well and is a good middle ground. Sai Weng (talk) 01:20, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
20. This seems like an eminently reasonable option. —Tom Morris (talk) 10:18, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
21. Support pending changes after watching and reverting countless unproductive edits in countless TFAs (including one of mine, which definitely gave me a headache that day and made me never want to do a TFA again). Pending Changes seems to me like an OK compromise between the above and below options. Ruby 2010/2013 06:26, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
22. Support PC should be the most desirable outcome. I've always thought that TFAs need some sort of temporary protection while on the Main Page. — ΛΧΣ^{21 Call me Hahc21} 02:15, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
23. Comment. I am torn between no protection and using pending changes. While letting new users edit TFA's is important, finding some way to limit vandalism, and mistaken yet good faith edits, from showing up is such a highly viewed article is very desirable. Eluchil404 (talk) 06:51, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Semiprotection

1. I'd really like for some of those folks who are saying that the current system works fine would actually have to deal with a large number of TFAs. Every additional one that you have to deal with just burns you out a bit more. It's a cumulative effect... you stop being interested in dealing with the crap. Is it really THAT important that idiots can change things on an article ... is the principle of "let's let anyone screw up an article because it proves we allow anyone to edit" worth telling the people who create your high quality content that their time and effort isn't really worth much because they obviously have nothing better to do than deal with vandalism and people who know nothing about the subject blovating at length? Because that's what you're telling me ... that my time isn't important at all... that I should spend my time dealing with the Randy from Boises or schoolchildren instead of creating more content. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:53, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

   Let me just offer my sympathies Ealdgyth, and observe that the pain you feel is the result of facing the Boxer mentality, that creates significant wear and tear on the diligent editors by perpetuating the "suffer and keep the website running" attitude. Of course no one is forced to be Boxer on Wikipedia - but are they not? Do you not feel a duty to keep the website in good shape? You do. I used to do. But after a while listening to the chorus of "we can just fight them off" becomes too much, you just walk off, only to be followed by a group of WP:ER people leaving you images of high cholesterol items. The reality is that the Boxer mentality of "all problems can be solved if we all work harder" permeates the fabric of Wikipedia. But with 4 million pages, this is not 2006 any more. But there will be no point in arguing the point. So I will just offer my sympathies to you here (with an equestrian backdrop), and will not even bother to support any decision. The outcome of this Rfc is already predetermined: "let us all just work harder". Well, good luck. Scholarly comments (talk) 15:16, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

2. Main page articles get a high amount of traffic, and we should try and keep them clear of vandalism. Yes - there are editors who work hard to revert such vandalism, but why not just save people the hassle? Since all the pages we're talking about have been judged as FA they're unlikely to need much improvement, so I don't think it's harmful for us to ban IPs from editing them. If they really have a concern, they can always raise it on the talk page. I think it's a bit ridiculous for people to worry about "going against the ethos of wikipedia" or whatever - it's only for one day. And we have lots of articles that IPs aren't allowed to edit anyway... --Loeba (talk) 15:11, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

   So now please let me ask the obvious question: what is the ethos of Wikipedia that you refer to in any case? Is the ethos to "present correct information" or to "let people change information"? The purpose of letting people change information is to correct errors, or enhance shortcomings when they see them. By that token let me offer a maxim:

   If an article is not good enough to stay stable for 24 hours, for Heaven's sake do not put it on the main page".

   Is that not straightforward? The assumption that the ethos of Wikipedia is a perpetual bump car game is no ethos for an encyclopedia, but for an amusement arcade. If it is good enough to go on the main page, it should be good enough to be protected to stay stable for 24 hours. Now, please do accept my apologies for getting upset here. I give up. I just set my account password to random and walked off. Good luck. Scholarly comments (talk) 23:36, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

   Erm...I was referring to the "ethos" that wikipedia be an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, which is what sets it apart from any other. But I'm pretty sure that we're in agreement: a featured article should be entirely accurate and comprehensive, so the need for people to edit it is minimal. The "ethos" becomes negligible. --Loeba (talk) 00:39, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

3. Support. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:29, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
4. Support. I can accept that there are exceptions to every rule. I would actually prefer that these TFAs are fully protected for two days, so we have absolutely no nonsense. Here, we're talking about our main page – one of the most heavily-visited pages on the planet. Let's just take away even the chance of excitement for those thrill-seekers who mess with our TFA just because we've always said they should be able to. Why should they be able to 365:24/7? A full lock-down for two days is going to stabilise the content and cure many more problems that it could possibly cause.-- Ohc ^¡digame! 05:24, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
5. Support Niels Bohr got 28,000 hits - a low figure probably due to it being a holiday of some sort in the US. There were 70 edits from 50 editors, and the only enduring result was two changes of capitalisation. Two admins were kept busy reverting over the 24 hour period. A lock down of the TFA is in order. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:50, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
6. I'd prefer full protection while on the main page, but I know there's no chance of that ever happening. Eric Corbett 20:15, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
7. Support - A logical step that prevents vandalism and saves editor time. Should have been done years ago. Jusdafax 20:34, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
8. Strong support --The main page is fully protected, this seems like a logical continuation of that. While some may argue this is preemptive protection, we have, in fact learned that just telling people not to vandalize doesn't work, we have to implement some preventive measures given that things prominently featured on the main page will get vandalized. It would save a lot of time that is currently spent reverting vandalism to TFA. Jinkinson talk to me 02:57, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
9. net positive any of these proposals has strong pro's and con's. This is the least bad solution. Dlohcierekim 13:53, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
10. Support, excellent proposal, sound and reasonable. — Cirt (talk) 18:22, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
11. Support. Semiprotection is the best compromise while articles are on the Main Page. It prevents drive-by vandalism while still allowing the community to make serious changes. In the dozen or so TFAs where I have been a major contributor, all got so much vandalism that they had to be semi-protected anyhow. Why not do it automatically? -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:40, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
12. Support per Loeba. I'd support PC2, as an alternative. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:46, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
13. Support - This would prevent the FA being used as a makeshift sandbox, something which appears to happen regularly. And as Ssilvers points out, semi-protection on FAs is so frequent a requirement that it makes sense to cut away a little of the red tape. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 23:47, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
14. Support - It's a temporary fix only while the article is featured, and it blocks out IP addresses and brand new accounts. Semi-protection is already used on many other articles, for an article whose purpose is sort of a showcase of Wikipedia (like TFA) it doesn't make sense not to do this. MezzoMezzo (talk) 05:40, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Full protection

1. Support In the three articles that I've had that appeared on the mainpage, most of the edits were removing and replacing oxford commas or vandalism. I've never seen a substantial edit. If there's a substantial edit, they can always mention it on the talk page.--ColonelHenry (talk) 21:18, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
2. Support. Better safe than sorry. This saves a whole lot of trouble and prevents a whole lot of problems. It's only temporary, so why not? As the editor above says, there's always the Talk page if something is major -- which for a FA article should not be the case. Softlavender (talk) 06:27, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Better safe than sorry goes against the ethos of wikipedia that anyone can edit.Martin451 21:04, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

• Not even sure which category I fit in yet....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:36, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
• This is another perennial proposal. Among the reasons that protecting TFA's have failed to gain consensus in the past have included: TFAs are suppose to help promote Wikipedia to new users by featuring a daily article that "anyone can edit", the TFA is usually always watched by many editors to revert obvious vandalism, per WP:PPOL articles are not preemptively protected before vandalism occurs, and the article can be cleaned-up or reverted once it falls of the main page. See also WP:MPFAP and Wikipedia:For and Against TFA protection. Zzyzx11 (talk) 20:52, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, was aware that it was perennial, just wondering on whether the benefits/headaches are tilting again in favour of some form of protection. We also have a Pending Changes option, though I find PC of very limited use only, if at all. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:34, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

My comment was only meant for others, who might not be aware that all these issues were discussed before, and a summary of the previous arguments, for and against, have been complied on those pages I cited. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

(belatedly) aaah ok, yeah good point. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:30, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

• I'd go with Pending Changes, to be honest. Semi-protection and full-protection by default simply aren't helpful; PC for the day should do the job in most cases. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:44, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I'd be more in tune with PC if it wasn't a kludge of a system that's hard to understand and counterintuitive. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:26, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

So Luke....you wanna place a vote in teh PC segment above? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:35, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've notified Wikipedia talk:Protection policy, since this means making a change to the policy. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 01:01, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• There also may be an issue with applying pending changes protection to TFAs. Per WP:PCPP and WP:PC, pending changes protection should not be used on articles with a very high edit rate. Some TFA's do in fact generate lots of traffic and edits. This was a problem that we found in the various pending changes trials: pending changes was ineffective to articles that received high editing rates. They instead resulted in a significant backlog at Special:PendingChanges. In addition. the speed at which reviewers were checking each page revision (and going through the review process) could not keep up with all the IPs and non-autoconfirmed users making various edits. And the way PC works, a registered user's subsequent edits do not normally become visible until all the previous IP and non-autoconfirmed edits are accepted,. Thus in the end, consensus was made that it was much easier to just apply semi-protection to high-traffic pages, since that was effectively happening anyway with all these pending changes backlogs. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• The current situation means that we are serving vandalized articles at least some of the time. Pending changes is burdensome and one more wearying task that eats up resources that would be better spent elsewhere. As an alternative, why not link from the Main page to a fully protected copy of the TFA, with a hatnote with a link to the actual article. New edits to the actual article could be monitored/pending while the TFA was active. Most vandals would want to see their work to immediately appear linked from the Main page, and there would be less incentive for them to go down another level and vandalize an actual article. As fewer vandals would target actual articles, as their changes wouldn't be highlighted from the Main page, there should be fewer edits to patrol. Is there something onerous that I'm missing that would prevent trying something along this line? • Astynax ^talk 19:17, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how I feel about this or how workable it would be, but it's actually a pretty interesting idea. --Bongwarrior (talk) 01:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I like this much (much) better than the various forms of protection being discussed. Hobit (talk) 15:02, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• I'd strongly support this motion, but I get the feeling it may get vetoed by the WMF or something like that. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 18:12, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• That's a pretty good idea, Astynax. Were you thinking the protected copy of the TFA would be in project space? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:21, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of handling it that way. The only thing that had occurred to me to address the issue of a duplicate page title was to add something to the copy's title in the mainspace (e.g., the locked copy might be Featured: William Burges and the William Burges article would remain unlocked or pending changes). After the TFA, the copy's title could be turned into a redirect back to the article, to preserve any outside links made to it during the TFA. Perhaps that is too clunky, however. My reasoning was simply that vandals and PoV-pushers tend to go after the most visible spaces and much less likely to bother going after the article itself. Putting up a protected copy would also impact the boost that TFA makes on the hit count for a featured article, but I believe the vast majority of editors would be unconcerned with that bit of vanity. should TFA linking to a fully protected copy reduce vandalism. • Astynax ^talk 00:21, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I like this idea too. I couldn't think why Lukeno94 would think the WMF might veto it, but now I think of it the page view thing is one reason. Maybe send all those who click on the "read more" link to the mainspace article which would be protected, but when you click "edit" you are directed to an edit version of a copy of the article (and a prominent notice tells you that you are not editing the actual article). Effectively, page views would remain the same, but edits would get directed to a sandbox. The problem with this, and similar proposals, is that someone may read the protected version, and go to make edits to the 'editable' copy of the article, only to find that someone else has already edited it and the two versions are out of sync. Essentially the same problems that pending changes runs into. It might be workable, though. Carcharoth (talk) 01:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, must say I am not keen on forking a page into two copies. Why not just use Pending Changes, which is what this sort of is..? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:33, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The idea is to cut down on the number of edits that must be vetted, and in some cases the amount of article-related knowledge required of reviewers (some vandals do like to introduce nonsense that may not be immediately obvious to people unfamiliar with a subject). An article that has gone through the FA process, and then another look-through and cleanup prior to TFA should be presentable as-is. The idea is not creation of a fork, but rather a temporary mirror of the TFA article. The only addition would be a hatnote with a link to the editable article. The TFA vandals I've noticed have overwhelmingly focused on getting their markup posted in the highly visible article linked from the mainpage. Few of these have bothered to attack articles before or after the TFA, nor have they vandalized related articles prominently linked within the TFA. • Astynax ^talk 20:00, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll stick with no change, but a full-protected copy (with a link back to the original editable article) is vastly preferable to PC. Wnt (talk) 01:31, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• Before recommending any change, I'd like statistics on how serious is the issue of vandalism: how many articles are vandalised, how often they're vandalised, how long we're serving vandalised pages for, how much time is spent fixing this. I generally think that before coming up with a controversial proposal, people should make some kind of effort to quantify how much of a problem there actually is. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:57, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

(sigh) you're right - I highly doubt any vandalism gets through unreverted after a day on the mainpage, but quantifying the reverts, and then figuring out what people think is reasonable/unreasonable use of time could be interesting. I suspect we'd not find consensus....but should be done I guess....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:33, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The analysis from December 2008 is here. DrKiernan (talk) 21:29, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

The 2006 and 2008 studies showed that the average article sends about 2-3 hours of the day in a vandalised state, although due to caching the vandalised version may be viewable longer. While most vandals go with "suck my cock" and the like, some like to insert nonsense. Usually this is just fiddling with dates and figures to make them wrong; these changes take longer to fix. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:14, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

@DrKiernan, that's a great study - would you have time to repeat it this time round? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:16, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Where should the new data (User:DrKiernan/sandbox) be posted? DrKiernan (talk) 11:17, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

If it were me, I'd put it at Wikipedia talk:Don't protect Main Page featured articles/December 2013 Main Page FA analysis and make sure there were crosslinks on all pages. I think this sort of material is essential to reference in future. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:54, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

It should also refer back to the earlier studies. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Invitation to help craft a proposal

Surveillance awareness day is a proposal for the English Wikipedia to take special steps to promote awareness of global surveillance on February 11, 2014. That date is chosen to coincide with similar actions being taken by organizations such as Mozilla, Reddit, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Feedback from members of this Wikiproject would be greatly appreciated. Please come join us as we brainstorm, polish, and present this proposal to the Wikipedia Community. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:07, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

infobox suggestion

A current arbcom clarification request indicates some editors are frustrated with chronic "why doesn't this article have an infobox" questions when a non-boxed FA appears on the page. I'd suggest those editors create an WP:ESSAY with the boilerplate explanation of infobox policy. Then when questions arise the essay can be wikilinked to; while this wouldn't totally eliminate discussion of the day's specific article, hopefully it would address the bulk of the concerns. NE Ent 13:01, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

It's a very good idea, thanks for bringing it up, but I suspect given the strong will of some of the people here we'd something a little stronger than that to prevent TFA disputes breaking out over infoboxes. It would at least be a start though!!♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:18, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

How are articles proposed for TFA?

I'm interested to know how North Road (football ground) got selected to be "Today's featured article" for March 19 when no one associated with the article proposed it for that honour (or at least, I know I didn't). Surely if an article is to be featured on the main page, the article's significant contributors should be informed ahead of time? – PeeJay 21:08, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I selected it as TFA coordinator. If TFA worked on the basis that only articles nominated at the requests page (whether by their principal editors or others) could run at TFA, then we would have blank spaces 55% of the time (because TFAR only provides suggestions 45% of the time). The selection has been made 9 days in advance so you do know about it well in advance (in the old days, articles were sometimes selected with just hours or minutes to go) - you should get a bot notice soon saying that it's been selected and that if there are any problems, to contact me. So, if you have any problems, let me know. Bencherlite^Talk 21:18, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

No, no problems. Why would you assume there's a problem? I'm just curious about the process. – PeeJay 21:39, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Glad to hear there's no problem - it looked as though you might have been complaining so I'm glad that you're not! Bencherlite^Talk 21:58, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Definitely not. I'm pleased that an article I spent so much time on getting to FA standard is being recognised on the main page. So how did you decide on this article specifically? – PeeJay 22:00, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

My thinking went like this: I try to keep an eye on how many articles are selected in each topic area (see User:Bencherlite/TFA notepad#Going just by the numbers...) and I thought it was time for another sports article; I thought it was time for another football article (not since Bryan Gunn on 26th December) but as there's a sports team article nominated at TFAR I didn't want to clash with that, so I thought that something different (and not a biography, as there were a couple of those lined up for the following two days) would be good - so I clicked on North Road, saw it looked interesting and in good shape, so wrote a blurb and scheduled it. A bot adds the move protection, another bot will notify you and update the article history, I update my own records and the process begins again. As boring as that, I'm afraid! Bencherlite^Talk 22:15, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

curiosity

how come there are 2 TFAs? I don't mind it at all but I am curious how come it was done considering last time was a IAR. Nergaal (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

It's been done a few times now, I think when Bencherlite (and/or the community at TFAR) thinks a pair of FAs make a closely matched set. The last double TFA I can recall was Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin, which made sense since those two are practically fused at the hip in real life too. Resolute 14:34, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply (I was on holiday when this was asked). See TFA oddities - this was the third time that two (or more) articles have been featured in the same blurb; if you include the McCain/Obama double-header, it's the fourth time that multiple TFAs have appeared at the same time. Bencherlite^Talk 13:23, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Quality control

Is there any expectation that a) the article selected and b) the blurb have any sort of quality control? It is fairly common to find serious errors in both. It might help us if were able to catch some or most of these errors before an article and its corresponding blurb go live on the main page. --John (talk) 15:21, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Q.E.D. --John (talk) 18:04, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your edits in the last couple of days, although accusing me of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point when I corrected one of your mistakes on a blurb that was on the main page at the time (and where your mistake had been pointed out at WP:ERRORS) was hardly fair. Part of the reason that I schedule a fortnight in advance usually (sometimes more, if time permits) is precisely so that people (whether the original editor(s) of the FA or not) can check over blurbs and the articles, and make improvements where necessary. After all, no-one is perfect. History of Sheffield is one of the older FAs yet to run, so it perhaps needs a bit more TLC than some of the more recent FAs, but then again not every new FA meets with unbridled enthusiasm about the quality of writing, so newness/oldness is not necessarily a reliable indicator of quality. JeremyA, the FAC nominator from 2007, is still active and has been alerted to the article's appearance, and I hope that he also has some time before TFA day to check over the article.

To answer your initial question more directly (although I don't accept your starting point that "serious errors" are commonly found - TFA isn't DYK, after all(!) - but I don't want to get into a debate about that, which wouldn't help anything), the quality control measures (if you want to call them that) would be these:

• Firstly, FAC itself - although standards can change over time and the reviews may themselves vary in thoroughness. Hopefully an increase in reviewers would help improve standards of new FAs generally, as well as increasing the number of new FAs (since many FACs stall for lack of reviewers).
• After an article has the FA star, it is then left to the article's principal editor(s) - if they stay active, of course - and other interested editors to keep an eye on the article. Some articles will need regular updating, some will not. To that extent, it's all a bit of pot luck. An old FA may be perfect; a new FA may lose its shine very rapidly.
• Some FAs may deteriorate to the extent that they are no longer fit for the main page. Dweller started a survey a while ago at User:Dweller/Featured Articles that haven't been on Main Page of older FAs, which I consult when making my decisions. I'd love it if more people took a look at that and checked out articles there – I'm not sure how active Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles is. Some may deteriorate to the point that someone takes them to FAR. Needless to say, anything that's at FAR won't be running at TFA at the same time!
• Then we get to the selection process. On average, about 45% of TFAs are processed through the requests process, where people can and do point out issues with article quality. Sometimes this will lead to nominations being withdrawn or unsuccessful, and I can think of at least two examples where a TFA nomination led to the article being taken to FAR and then delisted (one of which was promoted as recently as September 2012). Blurbs are often written by the principal editor(s) of the article, who hopefully know the territory well enough to ensure that compression does not mean distortion, and then can be (and often are) tweaked by me and by others.
• The other 55% of TFAs - although unfortunately it's currently running at 75% because TFAR is comparatively quiet - are chosen by me. Now, my wife would be the first person to tell you that I'm not perfect, and she'd be the second person to tell you just to make sure that you got the message. But I do my best. Mistakes will happen. I will try not to choose obviously problematic articles. But I am not a one-man FAC / FAR substitute - I do not have the time or the skill to check every potential TFA for mistakes, omissions, referencing issues, lack of updates, or anything else. What I can do, though, is to schedule a decent time in advance so that others can check the queue. At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, this has been welcomed by some FA editors, in comparison to former times when TFAs were chosen with less than half a day's notice. 10/14 days gives people time - and an incentive! - to check over their FAs before everyone else does...
• So, both before but also after scheduling, quality control is open to anyone interested in helping. I know from my watchlist that there are some editors who check my blurbs and new TFA choices regularly before they hit the main page. The more the merry, frankly! I would welcome your ideas as to how the processes could be improved. In terms of what you can do to help, perhaps, just carry on doing what you're doing whenever you can. To that extent, I consider History of Sheffield as a good result - you've taken a look at an article you might not have otherwise read but for its forthcoming TFA slot, and found things that you can improve, with plenty of time before TFA day. I'd also invite you to consider taking a look now and then at TFAR, if you would, as more eyes are always welcome there - and the more that can be done at/through TFAR before scheduling, the less I will have to do when scheduling either TFAR articles or off my own bat. Then at last I might find time to, I don't know, write some more articles... I hope you find this reply useful, John, and I'd welcome your further observations. Bencherlite^Talk 19:19, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you User:Bencherlite for your thorough and thoughtful reply. I am sorry for responding to your cheeky edit summary with a cheekier one. I hadn't realised this was basically a one-man show. The problems with History of Sheffield were serious; one error of fact and one NPOV fault in a short blurb would not have been a good advert for the thoroughness of our QC process. I will try to make time in the future to review TFAs a week at a time, as it is interesting and fun. That will be better than my previous practice of cursing under my breath as I corrected what seem like obvious errors on an article already being displayed on the main page. I apologise again for my snarkiness and I appreciate the good work that you do. --John (talk) 19:28, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you too, much appreciated, and I look forward to seeing your name popping up on my watchlist - although not too often, perhaps!!! Bencherlite^Talk 19:38, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to run a Maya Angelou FA as tomorrow's TFA?

We have a good number of Maya Angelou FAs, although I'm not sure if any haven't been run yet. If the community isn't against it, it might be nice to consider. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:28, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

The thought had already occurred to me... although I was wondering about going for the day of her funeral, whenever that may be, which will give a bit more time for the articles to be updated / tweaked. The choice is:

• The Heart of a Woman (1981)
• Gather Together in My Name (1984)
• All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986)
• A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002)
• Mom & Me & Mom (2013)
• Poetry of Maya Angelou
• Themes in Maya Angelou's autobiographies (doesn't mention Mom & Me & Mom, so needs updating)

I'd be tempted to go for All God's Children as that (and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which has already been TFA) strike me as being the two best-known in the series, although I may be wrong. I would also propose to link to Wikipedia:Featured topics/Maya Angelou in some shape or form in the blurb, per the above thread. Bencherlite^Talk 17:23, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll weigh in here, since I'm the main editor of all the above articles. The main article, Maya Angelou, was TFA on her 85th birthday last year (April 4, 2013), so I think that was too recently to put it on the main page again. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was TFA on Angelou's 81st birthday in 2009, so if the community supports it, I think it'd be a good choice. After that, Mom & Me & Mom is actually her next-best known autobiography, because it's her most recent; plus, it encapsulates many of the themes in the previous six autobiographies and answers many questions that rise from the others. After that, any of the others would do. BTW, the themes article doesn't mention Mom & Me & Mom because there are no sources, at this point, that specifically refer to its themes and how it fits into the rest of her autobiographies. Finally, I agree that the FTs, either the one mentioned above or Wikipedia:Featured topics/Maya Angelou autobiographies, should be mentioned. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for stopping by, Figureskatingfan. When we have so many Angelou FAs to choose from - well done you! - I don't think we need to break the rule about not repeating TFAs. The main article is bold-linked as a "full blurb" at ITN at the moment anyway (I merely suggested it for the "recent deaths" section but others went further) which is another reason not to use it as a repeat TFA. M&M&M has the advantage of course of being the most recent one to pass FAC, so I'll look to schedule that. Christine, do you have any thoughts about timing of TFA? Bencherlite^Talk 20:26, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks for the kind words. I wonder if we should wait until the day of Angelou's funeral, which I don't believe that been announced yet. Isn't that customary in this kind of situation? Plus, if we went with the main article, I'd want to wait until all the editing that's been going on dies down (62 so far today, with over 458,000 views--yikes!), and on the other articles, which I haven't looked at yet. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 20:48, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, you and I are thinking along the same lines - I'll look to schedule M&M&M for the day of her funeral, which gives you a chance to breathe again and check everything over! (This is why most of my articles relate to small uninteresting churches - no drama...) Bencherlite^Talk 21:00, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Usually, the articles I edit are drama-less! I suppose that with Dr. Angelou's advanced age, this kind of thing was inevitable. I regret that I never got to meet her. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:45, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I know this is a short notice, but would you guys be for or agains linking a TFT (Wikipedia:Featured topics/Maya Angelou autobiographies)? Nergaal (talk) 08:00, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

As I said before, I would also propose to link to Wikipedia:Featured topics/Maya Angelou in some shape or form in the blurb, per the above thread. Bencherlite^Talk 17:23, 28 May 2014 (UTC). Does that help? Bencherlite^Talk 08:34, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

You might have seen that there will be a closed memorial at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem Saturday morning. Perhaps that might be the day for an Angelou TFA? I've hesitated asking that question because there will be all kinds of memorials in the coming weeks, including a public one, perhaps. But maybe not. Would it be appropriate to tentatively plan for one, and if there's news of a more public (televised) memorial, that we postpone it? If not, I'm fine with Saturday (6/7). I also wonder if instead of using the above suggestions, that we use All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes, which surprisingly enough, is the most applicable of her books to what's going on in the world around us today. Plus, it's the autobiography that's been mentioned the most, after Caged Bird, in the press this week. It also happens to be my personal favorite, after Caged Bird. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 03:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I'd spotted that something looked as though it was going to be happening on Saturday. However, the TFA chosen for that day (Wells Cathedral) was picked because the new Bishop of Bath and Wells is enthroned in the cathedral on that day, so I'm reluctant to oust it in favour of an Angelou TFA. Would you mind if we waited for another opportunity? If we don't get news of another Angelou memorial soon, I'll just put All God's Children into the queue for a date at random. Bencherlite^Talk 06:39, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I'm fine with that. I'll continue to keep my eyes open for such. Thanks. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:46, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Who looks at what...Leo Minor

Intrigued by this. I buffed Leo Minor, which got 30k views yesterday, but wondered about other bluelinks and who perused them as well. So imagine my surprise when I saw Beta Leonis Minoris get 36k views, 46 Leonis Minoris got nearly 40k views, constellation shot up to 29.5k views, apparent magnitude got 21k views, Ursa Major mentioned in passing got 22.5k views, and Hanny's Voorwerp got 44k views! Bayer designation got 40.4k views, binary star got 21k views. 21 Leonis Minoris got 40k views

But noone looked at white main sequence star

11 Leonis Minoris (down the article and not mentioned in blurb), even rose to 53 views.

Anyway, food for thought I guess...might be worth looking at for other articles/article links too..Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:36, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

That is interesting! It seems that many readers click on an interesting blue link the blurb without necessarily going to the article itself first. Modest Genius ^talk 13:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I was musing on a little experiment next time...all those articles saw very little editing despite many being small. Was tempted one time to tag a bunch of bluelinked articles and see if it spurred any editing from viewers. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:48, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Most readers are not interested in becoming editors. At the same time, existing editors are unlikely to be clicking on random things on the Main Page. I don't find the lack of editing particularly surprising or particularly worrying. Also, note that Bayer designation already had a big orange-level tag on it, but received precisely zero edits. Modest Genius ^talk 15:08, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

That's because of overtagging. Such a high proportion of Wikipedia articles have a tag on it that readers ignore them in the same way we all ignore men with helmets and reflective orange vests. A policy of gradual tagging would be better, but people like to go around tagging things thinking that it's a useful contribution and that magical fairies will come and clean up after them. #truth #WriteDontTag Source: Me. Samsara (FA • FP) 19:33, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Good point. Hadn't noted that. Okay then I will just buff all the linked articles as much as possible then.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:59, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Casliber. Not sure if I'm a typical example, but I don't really visit the main page. #fact Samsara (FA • FP) 19:09, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

A bit off topic: the German Wikipedia insists on one link only for the DYK equivalent. Years ago, I reviewed a triple nom for DYK by PumpkinSky, saying that the three nature reserves were so similar in structure that I could accept only one as new content, but that the others would receive just as many hits, - which came true. I have extra blue links in DYK hooks only if I want attention for those topics, example ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:02, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah agree - some things I think are worth linking to but not everything. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:59, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Pageview stats off

I have started up a thread about how all the page view stats being used for WP:DYKSTATS, WP:TFLSTATS and WP:TFASTATS are using 23:00 to 22:59 (UTC) rather than 00:00 to 23:59 (UTC) as the day at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#wikiviewstats_vs._stats.grok.se.2Fen_time_ranges_.2823:00_to_22:59_.28UTC.29_rather_than_00:00_to_23:59_.28UTC.29.29.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:24, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Whats with the M's?

Is the queue now in alphabetic order and is having an alliterative title a new FA criterion?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 05:52, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Unless there's some odd connection between the letter M and the first week of October, then it looks like just a fluke; there's no such pattern before Oct 1 or after today.87.69.198.33 (talk) 14:45, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No fluke but on the contrary my deliberate choice, for a bit of fun. The answers to Maunus's questions are "no" and "of course not". Bencherlite^Talk 16:49, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Maunus with three m in the signature is the mucho macho better person to ask than GA. (I received an answer from Mimfmeak on my talk.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

wp:TFT

I am wondering what would people think about linking a FT to a running TFA. For example, today's TFA, "Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)" could have linked to the discography topic had it been not a GT, but a FT. Perhaps link it somewhere around the "Recently featured:..." part? Nergaal (talk) 14:38, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the 1969 autobiography about the early years of writer and activist Maya Angelou. The first in a six-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. In the course of Caged Bird, Maya transforms from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to racism. Angelou was challenged by her friend, author James Baldwin, and her editor, Robert Loomis, to write an autobiography that was also a piece of literature. Because Angelou uses thematic development and other techniques common to fiction, reviewers often categorize Caged Bird as autobiographical fiction, but the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an autobiography, a genre she attempts to critique, change and expand. The book covers topics common to autobiographies written by black American women in the years following the civil rights movement: a celebration of black motherhood; a critique of racism; the importance of family; and the quest for independence, personal dignity, and self-definition. Caged Bird was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970 and remained on The New York Times paperback Best Seller list for two years. However, the book's graphic depiction of racism, sexuality and childhood rape have caused it to be challenged or banned in some schools and libraries. (Full article...)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is part of the Maya Angelou autobiographies series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

Recently featured: Hare coursing – Meningitis – Museum of Bad Art

Something like this, perhaps? Bencherlite^Talk 14:52, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Rather a topical example, as it turns out... Bencherlite^Talk 14:06, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps something even more subtle than this, but this would work. Nergaal (talk) 14:06, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support I like the idea of linking a FT to TFA. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:49, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Not sure about the formatting, but it's a perfectly good inclusion. —Designate (talk) 20:23, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support - I'm all for this. Being a delegate for FTC, I think this'll help get the project and the Featured Topics some well needed exposure on the main page. GamerPro64 05:24, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support. A most excellent proposal by Nergaal. Thank you, — Cirt (talk) 01:15, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I should have noted here a lot earlier that this has been happening since July, using {{TFATOPIC}} immediately after the blurb e.g. Part of the Sega Genesis featured topic.. "Today's featured list" does the same now too. See Wikipedia:Featured topics/Main Page appearances for the details. Bencherlite^Talk 16:04, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protection?

Might it be worth semi-protecting articles while they're featured on the Main Page? I doesn't make sense to me to have there be a lot of views and a lot of vandalism at the same time. Jsayre64 (talk) 01:25, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi professor ... Btw, you probably know this, but I don't see a notification on your talk page ... Natchez revolt will hit the Main Page on Nov. 30. - Dank (push to talk) 01:49, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

See the Perennial proposal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:00, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, hearing about the Natchez revolt TFA led me to wonder about this. Well, I hope that vandalism to TFAs always gets reverted very promptly (good thing we have bots); otherwise, it's not worth leaving featured articles wide-open to IP vandalism and unlikely to be improved by IP editors. Jsayre64 (talk) 04:04, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Two featured articles at a time?

I vaguely remember when Barack Obama and John McCain were featured on the main page together on Election Day, 2008. I don't, however, recall any other time when the TFA blurb was shared, and I have a suitable anniversary in mind for a possible second time. June 23, 2016 will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog - the character, the Sega Genesis game, and the franchise. I raised Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 video game) to GA status last month and am planning to put it up at FA sometime this coming year, and I was thinking of doing similar work with Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game), which was itself produced for the original game's 15th anniversary. I think it'd be cool to show two very different entries in the series that nonetheless share the same, unrevealing name, side-by-side, but am open to other suggestions - I think it'd be a shame to limit this TFA to one Sonic article, if any is chosen at all. Thoughts? Tezero (talk) 06:04, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

It wouldn't be the second time, but it still would be an unusual thing to do - see WP:Today's featured article oddities. Good luck in your improvement efforts - you've got plenty of time to get there. Bencherlite^Talk 09:19, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I got the constellations Triangulum and Triangulum Australe sharing April 12, 2014. Would like to do again sometime with Corona Australis and Corona Borealis....if I ever get round to buffing the second one to FA that is. There are probably some other natural pairs out there....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:03, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

And while nothing happens here...

... would anyone actually like to nominate articles at WP:TFAR, for the benefit of my successors (or, worst-case scenario, my benefit)? Current total of TFAR nominations initiated in December: just 4, and we're now halfway through the month with Christmas holidays likely to distract lots of people in the next couple of weeks. Alternatively, someone could actually close the discussion or do something that would bring the day of my retirement closer - or is that just wishful thinking on my part? Bencherlite^Talk 10:36, 16 December 2014 (UTC)