Wikipedia talk:Featured articles/Archive 7

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Featured articles discussion archives:
pre-12/2003 and renaming poll • Origins dispute • up to January 1, 2005 • up to January 1, 2006 • up to May 1, 2006 • up to Aug 7, 2006 • up to January 31, 2007 • up to August 23, 2007 • up to September 19, 2007 • up to April 10, 2008

Contents

[edit] It's that time of the year again

Yep, it's the time where users are opposing articles for no reason but size, even when they admit articles are adequately comprehensive. The Hurricane Irene (2005) discussion is being repeated at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hurricane Erika (1997) and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2000 Sri Lanka Cyclone, and just repeated at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hurricane Ismael. You can also have a look at these kinds of comments... what can be done in cases like these? Titoxd(?!?) 04:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

  • When people make inactionable objections, informing them of the policy as you did here seems fine. About the talk page comment you linked, I don't think anything needs to be done, although you could explain to him the nature of the process. Such misunderstandings are unavoidable so long as our featured article standards diverege from the standards people would naturally expect. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do you think this article is FA quality?

Comments sought on this biography of a musician. Thank you. AppleJuggler 04:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured user pages

Hi, please comment here. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 19:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured articles semi-protection

I suggest all Featured articles be semi-protected automatically after reaching FA status. Too many have ignoble ends. Many unregistered, irresponsible edits often turn an FA article into a bad one; it prevents a general downward slump. Pls seriously consider this suggestion. Mandel 18:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm with ya! See Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection and Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection, the debate can get quite lively.Rlevse 18:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree as well. It would prevent a lot of unnecessary editing. Viper323 23:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Support me there if you please. Mandel 18:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
You have my complete and total agrement. FA status appears to be a big vandalism magnet; maintaining the article quality is a daily job. — RJH (talk) 22:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Main page featured articles protection

I think all Featured articles should be totally protected while they're on the front page (and for a day or so beforehand) - there have been a few times recently (the most recent being about 5 mins ago) when I've undone vandalism on the day's front-page article. I seem to remember that front-page articles used to be proteted like this, and I can't think of any good reason why it would be changed. Can anyone clarify why the change was made? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tavdy79 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

I don't have any recollection of them being protected, however you should discuss this at Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection not here. Richard001 04:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can I split Sport and Games ?

They seem like very diffrent aspects to me. I notice this topic was raise back in January but nothing has been done. Anyone know why? If no one objects in the next day or so I'm going to split them into "Computer and video games" and "Sport and recreational activities". Buc 18:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It was done, and not done very well, which is why I reverted. In effect, it created two categories where the split was not all that clear. (By splitting it between "Sports" and "Games", the distinction between the two being very subjective)
I don't care for your proposed split because there is already a computer section. Perhaps it should be computers and video games? Raul654 18:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

How about all computer and video games are moved to "Computing" and "Sport and Games" is renamed "Sport and recreational activities"? Buc 20:00, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If no one objects in the next few hours I'm going just go ahead and do it. Buc 07:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to restate, I'm OK with the proposed move, but I would prefer the section be called "Computers and video games" Raul654 18:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't tell what split is being proposed, or how it will work, but if it happens, WP:FFA needs to follow suit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The proposal is to realign "Sports and Games" and "Computing".
"Computing" will become "Computers and Video Games"
"Sports and Games" will become "Sport and recreational activities" Raul654 18:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. Just to clarify here are the articles I've moved. 3D Monster Maze Bulbasaur Chrono Cross Chrono Trigger Donkey Kong (video game) Doom Empires: Dawn of the Modern World Final Fantasy IV Final Fantasy VI Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy VIII Final Fantasy X Final Fantasy X-2 Half-Life 2 Halo: Combat Evolved Katamari Damacy The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Link (The Legend of Zelda) Metal Gear Solid Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee Perfect Dark Shadow of the Colossus StarCraft Torchic

[edit] FA documentary?

Does anyone know of a or high quality or FA documentary article similar to Trembling before G-d? The FAs are very hard to look through these days. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 00:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If there is it will be in the "Media" section. Buc 07:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article of 21 February 2007

I am truly astonished about the article that made it on the Main Page today (Avatar: The Last Airbender). This article has a number of problems:

  • in the first sentence, there is an occurence of the word "currently". This means that after some time, the article will no longer be correct. No article with such a formal fault should make it on the front page.
  • the logo shown in the article and displayed of Wikipedia's Main Page is copyrighted. Although it looks as if the copyright owner cleared it to be used in Wikipedia, the copyright owner is a comercial company. No Article containing such Material should make it on the Main Page (IMHO). Here the citation of the copyright license of that picture:
  • This image is a screenshot of a copyrighted television program or station ID. As such, the copyright for it is most likely owned by the company or corporation that produced it. It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots
  • for identification and critical commentary on the station ID or program and its contents

on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, might be copyright infringement. For more information, see Wikipedia:Fair use.

  • To the uploader: please add a detailed fair use rationale for each use, as described on Wikipedia:Image description page, as well as the source of the work and copyright information.

By the way, the required "fair use rational etc." is missing in the article.; another reason that it should not have made it on the frontpage!

  • The article can be viewed as a comercial add. There is an organisation (a TV Chanal) having a comercial interest in this article appearing on the Front Page of Wikipedia. IMHO, articles for which anybody has a comercial interest in making them more visible on Wikipedia should not be allowed to become featured articles. The first question comming to mind is if they paid teh Wikimedia foundation money for this (nothing wrong with that, but readers should be informed by a banner saying "This is a comercial adverticment sponsored by ...". Or did the people in that TV-Chnanal wright the article and then somehow manipulated the election process (by registering a lot of fake voters or the like). Even if nothing of this is the case, the mere fact that such question come to the reader's mind is enough not to choose such articles as featured article. Choosing such an article is damaging the reputation of Wikipedia!
How is this a comercial add, there are numerous people that helped make this article featured today. Im not sure about people paying for stuff, didnt even know you could. The article was chosen because the people who helped write it worked hard and changed everything they thoughtwas wrong. Saying that thsi shouldnt be a featured article is wrong because it ws not created to make other sites known (thats why there are no fan sites n here). Rosario lopez 19:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

No matter how well the article might otherwise be writen, but even if it is, I can't help having the suspission that it was written by employees of that TV chanal. TV-Chanals tend to employ a lot of professional writers and graphics designers. This impression is increased by the copyright license in Image:Avatar-TLAlogo.jpg. Clearly they saw that it was an advantage for them to grant Wikipedia the right to show this image. The question is if Wikipedia should accept such licenses. In my opinion, something like this must not happen again. So I would like to propose the following as a general Wikipedia policy: If somebody has a comercial interest in drawing attention to a particlular Wikipedia article, such an article should never be allowed to become a featured article, no matter how well written it may be!Nannus 19:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

    • Your criticisms are wrong in every respect. (1) Generally speaking, an article should give the current state of its subject. While this does mean the article could/will become outdated at some point, that is the nature of the beast when writing about current topics. (2) The fair use rational is given on the talk page of the image, per standard Wikipedia policy. (3) As far as copyrighted images on the main page, generally it's avoided if possible, but there are some topics for which a free image is impossible to find, and this topic is one of them. (4) As far as your unfounded accusations that this was written by an employee of Nickelodeon, I think the author's reply (below this comment) is an an adaquate (if not rather tame) reply. Raul654 20:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if I expressed myself not so clearly. I did not make any accusation that this article was written by an employee of that TV station. Just my first thought when I saw it was that it might be that way. In my oppinion, an article that provokes soche a reaction in some readers (and I guess I am not the only one who felt like that) is in my opinion reason enough not to put it there. Nannus 21:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I can tell you right away that I don't work for Nickelodeon, never have, and never will because I hate the company. I've helped to write more than half this article and keep it clear of vandalism. I don't enjoy your accusations in the least. As for the TLAlogo, I really have no idea what your problems are with it, but it's been there for almost two years now. H2P (Yell at me for what I've done) 19:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I did not say so. But when I see a logo owned by a comercial company on the entry page of Wikipedia, the first reaction I had was such a suspission. The fact alone that I (and probably other usres) are getting such a suspision on looking at the article disqualifies it, IMHO, as a featured article. I gor a fishy feeling. This does not mean that the article is not well writen (it is), just that in my opinion an article should not be there if anybody may have a comercial interest in seeing it there. I might be wrong on this, but I thin this should be discussed.Nannus 21:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, first off, fair use rationals go on the image description page, not the article, and the rationals is there. Secondly, what exactly are you on about? Nickelodeon has absolutely nothing to do with the creation of this article. Furthermore, someone can have a potential commercial interest in just about any article. Take, for example, yesterday's TFA, Mary Wollstonecraft. That article could be a commercial interest for somebody writing a biography on her. Should that be inappropriate, as well? Heck, there was a Star Wars movie on there earlier this month, and tomorrow's is a video game. I really just don't see what the problem is.--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 20:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Please reconsider making accusations or implications regarding coverage of commercial. If there were a problem about language in the article that did not meet WP:NPOV, this would be completely reasonable; however, implying that articles are being written or featured to meet commercial interests is wholly inappropriate and borders on a personal attack. ShadowHalo 04:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"in the first sentence, there is an occurence of the word "currently". This means that after some time, the article will no longer be correct" At which point I imagen it will be changed. Buc 20:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

accepted Nannus 09:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I am sorry for hurting anybodies feelings here. You people did a good job and had a big success and then I came along and spoiled your day. I should have waited a couple of days and I should have chosen my words more diplomatically. I did not want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but I did not take the feelings of those who wrote the article into account, and that was clearly a mistake. On the internet, you see words and easily forget the people behind those words. I hope I did not spoil your general enthusiasm about contributing to Wikipedia.

My reaction to this article being on the main page was emotional, and I should have waited until those emotions were gone. I hope you accept my apology.

Now let me rephrase the question without emotion and in a general way: if somebody could have a strong (commercial, political…) interest in seeing an article on Wikipedia’s main page, should this stop the Wikipedia community from choosing that article as featured article or are such considerations irrelevant? Should the choice only be based on the intrinsic qualities of the article or should other factors be taken into consideration?Nannus 09:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, "currently" is bad form - ideally, an "as of" should be used. This is a wiki, you know - Be bold! -- ALoan (Talk) 11:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I understand exactly how you feel, Nannus, and while I didn't contribute to this article (I just clicked on it when I saw it on the main page), I believe that while articles that could be editted for things such as political sway or commercial gain, the like, that's why the featured articles are important in one way; those articles are the ones that don't have those biases or suchlike degrading the value of the article, showing it's exceedingly high quality (at the time it was nominated, at least).

[edit] 1000 Excellent Articles in German WP

I am proud to present you the 1000th Excellent Article in the German Wikipedia: Pamir, a German sailing boat. There are also 1821 Lesenswerte Artikel, that corresponds to the Good Article in the English WP. You can suggest an article for translation into English at Wikipedia:Translation. --Tantalos 15:58, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion:Featured Templates

In the same way we have Featured articles, pictures and sounds. Buc 07:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Templates are not encyclopedic content. Aside from some sort of April Fool's joke, it's difficult to see how this would work. See also Wikipedia_talk:Featured_articles/Archive4#How_about_.22Featured_templates.22.3F Gimmetrow 15:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should we publish a compilation of featured articles?

I've heard a lot about the Wikipedia:Release Version, and I thought, why not release a CD containing all the featured articles? Or maybe a DVD with all the featured content? It could be released as a stand-alone version, or in a double-disk with the currently proposed release version? — Jack · talk · 18:47, Friday, 16 March 2007

Be my guest. Raul654 20:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:V0.5 relies heavily on FAs, btw. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 22:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Make sure to credit all of the authors and have their contact info to verify that they own the copyright to the text. --Iamunknown 22:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I will say that I have given a whole lot of thought to how to publish Wikimedia materials (especially Wikibooks!) in multiple formats. I was also one of the early leaders on Wikibooks who first started to convert Wikibooks content to PDF formats (I can't claim to be first, but I certainly was one of the first two or three to do so).

In regards to Wikipedia, I would like to see something similar to http://www.wikipress.de/ Wikipress] (but in English!), where some groups of articles (like an entire set of Wikipedia articles about Chemistry or Astronomy) could be put into PDF files for similar kinds of distribution that Wikibooks already is doing for quality published Wikibooks. These PDF files would have value in and of themselves, and have generally brought very positive comments on Wikibooks other than the obvious issue of having them gradually get dated if they are not revised with new material on a regular basis.

Don't get me started on automated PDF generation of Wikimedia project content.... that is a whole Wikibook of information and arguments by itself. Let's just say that for now it is an impractical concept and wishful thinking for those who want to see it done in the short term. As a major programming effort worthy of a Google Summer of Code project, it may be (barely) a good suggestion. I think it is going to be tougher than even what a few college students could do over the summer, as I do have considerable experience in similar software engineering efforts. But a couple of very motivated individuals may surprise me.

PDF files simply must be created by hand. The most popular method on Wikibooks is to import the HTML into Open Office, fix up the HTML formatting aspects into something more readable in a word processor, add the GFDL and author information, and then finally export to a PDF directly from the Oo *.swx file. This same process can be done with Wikipedia articles, and indeed would be trivial.

Other formats for having these files besides PDF files (which are nice for off-line reading.... which is why I like them) would be to use static versions of the Wikipedia articles. The static HTML does an interesting thing where it lists the "authors" of Wikipedia articles.

Regardless, if once these files are put together in whatever format you want them, I would strongly recommend that a *.iso file should be created and made available.... preferably as a bit-torrent file or some other P2P file arrangement. We don't need to overload the Wikimedia servers any more than they already are right now.

For the actual publication... that is beyond me. I would love to organize an English "Wikipress" group that would make physically printed materials available, including pressed CDs and DVD-ROMs. There is no very organized effort right now to get content of this nature available for sale at say Amazon.com or another other commercial outlet. One of the huge reasons for this is because it is a very capital intensive activity, and we need to get somebody who is willing to risk some considerable amount of money (close to $5000-$10,000 USD) that may simply all disappear in a giant virtual black hole. And don't suggest Lulu Press here either, even though that is a good place to start. I would love to see something here involving the Wikimedia Foundation, but Brad Patrick and others on the WMF board of trustees have explicitly stated that the WMF does not want to get into the business of being a publisher and take on that legal liability.

I am willing to organize a group of independent individuals who are dedicated to setting up a publication group and I'm personally willing to take on the liability of being a publisher (as opposed to being an ISP like the WMF). But don't deny that there are considerable legal risks to going that route, and that such a group in America or the UK doesn't exist already should let you know that it isn't a trivial thing to put together. It has been more than a year since I floated this idea, and I've been very careful about not stepping on too many Wikitoes to get it going. --Robert Horning 02:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, there is an organized group of editors working on that. It is the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team, and you'll be hearing news from that front Real Soon Now™. WikiReaders would be something to be considered seriously, though. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 02:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
So have you secured funding and a seperate existance as legal body from the WMF? The WMF, as I pointed out, wants nothing to do with this except to get some money from would be publishers from trademark royalties. Who is putting up the capital for the publication? Who is taking on the legal risk as being the "publisher" of record? Being in a corporation is not sufficient in this case, as (usually) the CEO does take on this legal risk... and why Brad doesn't want it. Have you applied for ISBN/ISSN numbers? Who is paying for that? Who actually "owns" those numbers? Are you sure you know? How is this legal entity organized doing the publication? Is is private or is membership open to other Wikimedia content developers? And not just for participation, but who can actually "invest" into this company and get any potential profits? How is that determined?
That you have some people who are very much organized into putting together the content is admirable and a very important first step. What I'm trying to say here is that some thinking needs to go into what goes next, and there is nobody who is willing to take on some of the very significant risks. I am offering, but I lack the capital necessary to get this whole thing going (I've tried!) What I would ideally like to see is some sort of cooperative that exists outside of the WMF, but whose membership is open to basically anybody who has edited content on Wikimedia projects. The charter would allow some "profits" to be given back to those who contribute, usually in the form of published materials that would be sent to you in lieu of actual salary, but perhaps actual profits be given to those who are writing the content. Certainly the WMF would be a major target of profits as well, to "give back" to the WMF as a non-profit charity. I have some other ideas, but the main point is I would like to see this stay within the hands of the Wikimedia community and not be given over to a few opportunistic users who happen to get into the publication game first. And that is exactly what I see may happen if we are not careful. --Robert Horning 03:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I can't answer those questions in detail for a variety of reasons (some of them fall outside my involvement in the process, others I'm just not authorized to answer yet, as several parties have to give some final "go-aheads"), but what I can say is that we're extremely close (less than a month away) to a release, and have been working closely with the Foundation legal team and the Static content subcommittee to deal with the relevant issues. As for the latter part - I'm not sure how we would be able to stop it, if it indeed occurred; all the content here is released under the GFDL, so if an opportunistic user decided to assume the risk and give zero profit back to WMF, we're kind of screwed. The only thing we can actually do is to prevent usage of the Wikipedia trademark. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I ask these questions because it is precisely this closed mouthed attitude that nobody wants to talk about these issues that gets many individuals all confused. If you are up front and honest, saying that "No, we are not working on commercial publications of this content.", I would consider that to be an honest reply. Particularly because the WMF (especially Brad) has been very explicit that they do not want to get involved with any "static" publications. This committee is exactly the kind of thing that I have complained almost incessanty about as well, as it sets up a closed group of individuals who are not responsive to any outside input... even though I have already served on one of these sub-committees (the Wikiversity working group).
I would very much like to avoid duplications of effort on projects of this nature, but from this sort of attitude it seems like that duplication of effort is precisely what is going to happen. Where this is particularly heartbreaking was my efforts on b:Wikijunior, where some "deadlines" were demanded (and met!) and a promise of formal dead-tree publication was made by none other than a certain member of the WMF board of trustees and then denied that it was even offered after the deadline had passed. I was stuck with the job of trying to explain to the Wikijunior participants that they had been lied to, or at least substantially mislead. Sorry about my vitriolic comments here, but this is something that has been a standing issue, even though we have commercially printable material to distribute today if somebody is interested in helping out. This is not real soon now, but today and now! It is not vapourware at all.
Indeed, when one of the Wikibooks users posted a link to a website publishing this content, Brad and Jimbo explicitly went and sent a cease and desist letter out demanding that the content be removed for sale, because we didn't get permission from the WMF. Let's just say that the effort to sell these books has not received too much support here. I could go on, but there certainly are some problems here that havn't been fully addressed, and should be in some public forum. --Robert Horning 02:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
We are discussing Wikireaders now over at the 1.0 team, please leave comments. We have always considered paper releases as part of our medium-long term plans. So far, we have only produced a CD (expected to be released next week). Walkerma 04:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] War category FAs

Would 'Warfare' be a better name than 'War'? — BillC talk 22:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Or "Military and warfare", perhaps? (Or even "Military history", as we don't have any fictional wars there?) But it may well be that it's just not worth fiddling with the section name, in any case. Kirill Lokshin 22:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I like Military and Warfare for a title. They're all military-related, but not all are specifically war (ships that never saw combat, etc.) Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I'll change it to 'Military and Warfare' and hope this doesn't come across as fiddling with it. I won't object if someone changes it back or to something different. — BillC talk 22:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about sorting

I noticed that Nintendo Entertainment System is listed under "engineering and technology" while Wii and Commodore 64 are listed under "computers and video games". This doesn't appear to be consisant, so which way should we fix it? Jay32183 22:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm somewhat puzzled why the articles on heraldry and vexillology aren't listed the same place? At the moment the heraldic material is grouped along with biographies of royality and nobility, but since flags and coats of arms are simply two related types of insignia, it would make more sense to group the heraldic material with the articles about flags. Valentinian T / C 10:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I've now put NES in the video games section. Raul654 14:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a similar problem with Mosque and Angkor Wat being in the Religion section but not in the Architecture section. The architecture section contains christian religious buildings like Cathedral of Magdeburg and St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery. I think they'd all be better filed in the Architecture section. --Joopercoopers 17:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed an issue too - schizophrenia listed under biology and medicine. Since it is commonly addressed as a psychological and sociological topic, as well as biological and medical, this doesn't seem quite right. Is it because it's about the only psych page that's made it to FA?? EverSince 19:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I see Asperger's is also in there actually. EverSince 13:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
A category of one or two is not needed, and schizophrenia needs to be submitted to FAR soon, so creating a category for it now is perhaps premature. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say a category for one or two pages is needed. I specifically asked if that's why it's currently listed under a heading that only partially covers the field. EverSince 14:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of all featured articles?

Is there a list of all hte featured articles anywhere? David Spart (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) 15:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Umm yes. In fact this is it! Buc 18:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, Buc's referring to the fact that this page (Wikipedia:Featured articles) is the list of all featured articles. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:51, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of FAs

The current list of FAs has a bunch of categories and I am wondering if maybe we could adopt a list like they have at the different 1.0 projects like Wikipedia:Release Version. Greeves (talk • contribs) 17:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Their categorization doesn't look feasible here; for example, they combine History, War, and Archeology. That would make for a very big category here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1337 Featured Articles?

I just happened to randomly come here and notice that there are 1,337 FAs. Is this part of April Fools or something, or is this real? -- RattleMan 02:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Last time I checked the number (a few days ago), it was real; what is your concern? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm just wondering. I haven't come to the FA portal for a while, so it was sort of surprising to see 1,337 FAs. -- RattleMan 02:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Sandy - 1337 is "leet" ("elite") in Leetspeak. Rattleman was wondering if this was coincidental, or something done for April Fools. RattleMan - it's the real number. Raul654 02:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
<grrrr ... > Pollyannified again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Divisions in this page

How are the division (high level topics) on this page decided upon? As the number of FA's gets larger how do we decide to break them down further? Will further divisions happen at the same heading level (such as giving cities and countries their own sections) or will there be subheadings created (such as adding a biography section under several of the top level headings, or creating a storms/hurricains subheading). I think we shoudl give this some thought because the number is getting up there and many topic areas are starting to accumulate a lot of featured articles (such as all teh dino FA's) but are in topis to broad to be approprate for Wikipedia:Featured topics for some time. Dalf | Talk 02:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Front Page

Once an article has been promoted to featured and later featured on the Main Page, is it ever featured on there again in the future? Simply south 17:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

To date, no - we have not featured any articles on the main page a second time. Raul654 18:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stage actors: Suggestion

Most actors are shown on the FA page under the heading "Media". Stage acting isn't really "media", it's more like "Literature and theatre". Nevertheless, it makes sense to me that ALL actors be put in one place, especially since most of them do both stage and film or TV acting. Can we make the Media heading say "Media and actors" so that it will be clear where to put the FAs for actors? I know we don't normally mention professions in the headings, but in this case it would reduce confusion. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 03:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

What actors are not in that section? Raul654 03:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I mentioned to Ssilvers that we usually group bios by topic area, without specifying profession in headings, and that opening the door to profession could lead to long section headings. But Ssilvers raises a point about the distinction between, for example, restoration stage actors and present-day "media" actors. Perhaps the Restoration folk should be consulted :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Sandy, you know very well that the Restoration actors never answer their e-mail!  :-) Ssilvers
Pardon me for butting in on this conversation, which I came across quite by accident, but as a professional in the theatre I wonder if I can put in my 2 cents. The Theatre is generally considered one of the Arts, specifically the Performing Arts, but it can also be (and perhaps most times is) a type of Entertainment -- so, perhaps instead of just "Media" or "Media and actors", would something like "Media and Entertainment" or "Media and Performing Arts" allow all actors to be included in one place? Thanks. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk/cont) 12:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Intersting, but then where does it end? Do we then have to change the other Art category to Visual arts? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think that is exactly right. "Media and performing arts" vs. "Visual arts, architecture, and archaeology" (or put an "a" word first, if you want to keep this category at the top) would solve the problem and help people put articles in the right category without inviting any other changes to headings having to do with professions. -- Ssilvers 20:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Film is considered art and its put under Media along with television and newspapers. (Except for Abbas Kiarostami for some reason. He's a film director and under Art, architecture, and archaeology while other film people are under media. 160.79.140.254 15:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Good catch. I am moving Kiarostami to Media. This is a good example of why we should clarify that performing arts goes with Media, while visual arts goes with architecture. -- Ssilvers 20:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
oops, I just left a note on your talk page (before I saw this here) about that move. A previous editor left what seemed like a reasonable edit summary for the previous category, but I don't know anything about the guy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Schutz bot

I wonder why the bot didn't run to highlight The Turk for the main page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:20, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki's Featured vs Britannica "in-depth" articles

Wikipedia's Featured Articles seem to correspond to Britannica's 699 "in-depth" articles. Have any topic ever be compared from both?--BMF81 09:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi BMF81! :)
It's an interesting question; one difficulty in comparing them is length. The typical Macropædia article is now significantly longer than the typical single Wikipedean Featured Article. That's mainly because many were merged in the reorganization of 1985; between 1974-1985, there were 4,207 "in-depth" articles whose lengths were roughly equal in length to an FA. So it'd be better to compare those 4,207 articles against their Wikipedia counterpart, than the present 699 articles. That said, here's a list to get you going. On the flip side, the typical Wikipediea category usually has much more information than any single Macropædia, but it's not unified. Willow 11:04, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Art, architecture, and archeology?

I can see some connection between art and architecture, but archeology has nothing to do with the other two, other than starting with ar. Why is the first entry alphabetical when the rest are topical? Atropos 22:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Useless to say but...

Anyboddy notice that the current featured articles spell 1337? (leet) 19:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Isyou (talk • contribs)

Yep, because it has already been mentioned. Greeves (talk • contribs) 21:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion: Featured lists on the main page

There are nothing like enough yet to have them daily so how about weekly. They could go right under the featured image. Buc 17:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] See Talk:Lindsay Lohan

And pull the article from this page, please. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.174.226.172 (talk) 23:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

See Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lindsay Lohan. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 01:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Retrieved on" accessdate notation

Drawing the attention of FA interested editors to this discussion at Village pump (proposals). --HailFire 11:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image sizing

There have been several FAs with fixed image sizes, contrary to the MoS guidance on images. Could checking for this be added to the FA criteria, please? Andy Mabbett 15:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questioning FA-status of article "Swedish football champions"

Was the article Swedish football champions really a featured article? --Bensin 12:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind. It was a featured list. --Bensin 12:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Virtual classroom lesson on Featured Articles

Please take a look at an article I've written as part of my admin coaching. You'll find it at User:The Transhumanist/Virtual classroom/Dweller, on Featured Article Candidates Cheers. --Dweller 22:03, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More featured articles

I think its high time to have more featured articles and good articles on Wikipedia. These article are out there; its just a matter of finding them and applying a bit of polish. By 2008, I think the community should push for 2,000 featured articles, 5,000 good articles, and 200 'outstanding' articles. Just a thought. Theonlyedge 01:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you making a suggestion for a new grade of "outstanding" for articles?
Also I think it's a pretty safe bet we will have 2,000 FA by 2008. Buc 08:04, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
That's actually a very bad bet (I hope you got good odds). We currently have 1348 featured articles -- 642 articles away from 2000 articles. We had 1208 on January 1st of 2007, so in the first four months of 2007 we added 140 new featured articles. I seriously doubt we will make up the remaining 642 in the remaining two thirds of 2007. We will probably get there sometime in 2009, or (if we are lucky) mabye in 2008. Raul654 05:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

All he said was 2008. Did he mean by Jan 1st 2008? Buc 06:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

When I saw "By 2008" it implied, to me, before 2008. Raul654 06:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

See to me it said, some time in 2008 Buc 06:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:One featured article per quarter. — BillC talk 08:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

See WP:100K for the most ambitious project yet. hbdragon88 23:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List

I recall seeing a list of users by number of FAs they nominated. I remember the first three people: worldtraveller, raul654, and johnleemk However, runing that name through Google isn't yielding anything. Would anybody be so kind as to point me to the right page? hbdragon88 23:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations. — Rebelguys2 talk 23:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More prominent ID for featured articles?

At present, featured articles are only identified by the small bronze star in the upper RH corner. This is unlikely to be noticed by the casual, or even experienced, reader (as I can attest).

Since Featured Articles are Wikipedia's best -- shouldn't they be identified more prominently? An attractive banner at the top might be appropriate. Cheers, Pete Tillman 05:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Check the talk page of FA. Buc 06:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Is this something in the archive? I didn't see a discussion on this page. Cheers, Pete Tillman 17:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
What I ment was check the talk page of any FA. Buc 19:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


Absolutely not, for the same reasons that I opposed and continue to oppose the FA star, only more so. Raul654 05:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
The star is enough; it's been discussed before. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maintenance of featured articles

Should we start some sort of initiative to have all featured articles maintained by at least one editor? The vandalism and edit creep that gets into most articles is something we'll have to put up with at this time, but we could at least make a start on our very best articles. It can't be that hard to have one editor volunteer to maintain the quality of an article they have worked on after it becomes featured. There's still the issue of editors not taking the template down if they discontinue watching it, but it would at least be a start on addressing the problem. We could begin with current articles, and then start working back through the archive. Getting every article on someone's watchlist is another goal I'd like to see addressed, as well as improving the whole watchlist/maintenance system so it's easier to tell who is watching what and when they are no longer doing so. Richard001 04:50, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Good luck; at FAR, we've been able to build a group of about a dozen editors who work on saving what we can of deteriorated FAs, but we rarely find other or original editors willing to work on them, and it's thankless work. You're welcome to join us at WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:59, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, perhaps we could encourage people to maintain articles by giving higher priority to those articles that are maintained, for example only maintained articles could be candidates for the main page (or even to become featured at all). I don't think that's such an unreasonable request, after all what is the point building a high quality article just to let it decay as soon as you are finished?
We could start a category of unwatched featured articles. It may be a difficult problem at the moment but there also isn't a great deal of awareness of the problem - if we made more people aware that there were many featured articles needing 'adoption' and that edit creep is a real problem with articles, perhaps people would join in. Watching a single article isn't that big a hassle, and we have many thousands of editors, so I'm sure it can be resolved somehow. It could be achieved even if only 50 or so committed editors took up the task. Richard001 03:56, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, let's do that. One way would be to add a maintained param to Template:ArticleHistory. If the article is a FA, it is either put into Category:Unmaintained featured articles or Category:Maintained featured articles depending on whether this parameter is true. Λυδαcιτγ 03:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm willing to bet that most nominators already watch their respective articles to some degree. Assigning a maintainer treads close to ownership. I'd rather see featured article go up for regular (annual?) reviews. Pagrashtak 04:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
If most nominators maintained their articles afterwards, why would we be having this discussion? I think with FAs it needs to be more than 'Oh, someone has this on their watchlist', we need at least one editor to actually take responsibility for thoroughly checking every edit on a regular, hopefully daily basis, and to ensure the quality of the article doesn't start to decay. Ownership has got nothing to do with it, and letting politics get in the way is going to do nothing to preserve the quality of our best articles. Some organized system of maintenance is needed, and we currently have none. Starting 'maintained' and 'unmaintained' or 'orphaned' (perhaps unmaintained would be best) categories would make it clear that we want these articles to be looked after by someone. It could be added on talk pages to keep it out of the way and could be placed in Category:Maintained articles or somewhere like that. Richard001 05:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Given that some editors have ownership problems with {{Maintained}} (see this TFD), I fail to see how you think ownership will be a non-issue here. Pagrashtak 14:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
But given that the consensus was to keep the template, I think it is agreed that the benefits of using Maintained outweigh the costs. Λυδαcιτγ 00:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It's only a very small subset of articles, but if any U.S. road-related articles have problems, let WikiProject U.S. Roads know. I'm certainly willing to do what I can to help (I got Ridge Route reinstated recently with the help of interlibrary loan), and I'm sure others are too. Getting to the point, this would probably apply to most WikiProjects. --NE2 15:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not a small subset: most Projects don't maintain their FAs. I can't think of any process that would make it happen, and maintained by does not belong in articlehistory, which is to track GA/FA status. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
(Re:Pagrashtak): I've read that TfD before, and the result was strong support for keeping the template. I think the problem of article deterioration is far more important than being pedantic about ownership politics. Do you have an alternative suggestion for preventing vandalism and edit creep in featured articles? I can't think of one. Working with WikiProjects would be essential for the proposal to succeed. Improvement in being able to see how many people watch a given article and the problem of 'maintainers' who no longer maintain are critical issues in making it work.
(Re:Sandy): NE2 was saying that road articles are a small subset, not unmaintained featured articles. Maintained status would not be in article history, it would be on the talk page just like any other maintained template, and the article would be categorized as Category:Maintained articles, and Category:Unmaintained featured articles if it has none. Perhaps you feel negative about the idea, but saying you can't think any process would work is an argument from lack of imagination - I think it's better to try than to abandon any attempt at maintaining quality on a system level. Richard001 00:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Starcraft

I am nominating Starcraft article as an article for demotion due to a major error I discovered. The error is that all starcraft units are missing their sections and every link takes the person the unit's race. When someone clicks on the unit it should take them to a section or somewhere that describes the unit not the entire race. This is a probelm because each unit is used many times and many other articles have the units as comparsions and untill this error is fixed then Starcraft should not be a featured article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Agentheartlesspain (talk • contribs) 23:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

If you are suggesting the article have a full list of all units, this certainly isn't a case for demotion. Such is known pejoratively as 'cruft', and has no place in encyclopedic articles. A wiki for the game itself would be a more appropriate place. If you find such lists in other articles, they should be removed or at least tagged in some way. Richard001 00:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

the game wiki is a better place for it but thats not the probelm. The probelm is that each of these units links go somewhere that describes the unit's race and the not the unit. for example you search mutalisk and its redirects you to zerg, yea thats parts of descripition but it doesnt tell you what a mutalisk is exactly, all you know is that its a zerg and things about the zerg in general. its like searching for crow and redirects you to bird. its makes the link for the unit nearly useless and its all over the article, so the article needs a massive cleaning or isant a FA and its in other articles that compare to the units in starcraft Agentheartlesspain 01:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)agentheartlesspain

There is no link in the StarCraft article to mutalisk, and the fact that mutalisk redirects to the race is no problem - we certainly don't have articles on individual units in real-time strategy games. Richard001 05:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

so does that mean i can redirect every article that about a bird to the bird article? Agentheartlesspain 08:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)agentheartlesspain

Reading Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) and Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) might answer your questions. Pagrashtak 14:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Star Removal?

Is there a process for requesting the removal of Featured Article status, even long after the fact? I ask because, having just now taken notice of the fact that Global Warming was such an article, I nearly fell out of my chair when reading the necessary criteria for such status -- NPOV, in particular. Anyone who has read the voluminous talk pages for said article would immediately recognize that it is one of the most contentious articles on Wikipedia. There have been many complaints about the stranglehold that a select few editors have on the article, and there continues to be complaints on a regular basis. The fact that these complaints are dismissed by the article's controllers in no way diminishes them -- it only diminishes the credibility of Wikipedia, for allowing such repression. That seemingly insignificant star lends an added sense of credibility to the article, and implies that it can be safely taken at face value, but this is most decidedly not the case. I request removal of the star, if possible, to avoid these misleading connotations. --64.222.222.25 01:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Exactly what POV issue do you have? When it comes to something like global warming only scientific views are valid regardless of what the layperson or mass media may say about it, and the majority of scientific literature supports the article. I'm not even sure what exactly the nature of your complaint is though, so you'll have to be more specific. Richard001 05:28, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I specifically asked if there were a procedure for removal of FA status. I need to know this before I commit to mounting a detailed case. Please confirm or deny, if possible. Thanks. --64.222.222.25 05:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Featured article review/Global warming. Pagrashtak 05:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
WP:FAR is where FAs are reviewed; 64, you don't appear to have read the talk page of Global warming, since it is currently at FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evaluation please

I would like to get this article evaluated:

-- Fyslee/talk 09:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

If you're thinking of it becoming a featured article you may be aiming a little too high - going for Good article status is a more realistic goal early on, and really a prerequisite to becoming an FA anyway. Richard001 11:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Of course. I'm just interested in getting some people who are experienced at evaluating articles to take a look and give some pointers on what's lacking and needs improvement. -- Fyslee/talk 12:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
You might want to try Wikipedia:Peer review for that. While I'm here, here's some quick notes: the lead needs to be expanded per Wikipedia:Lead section, and references are missing information, such as access date. Try using {{cite web}} and other citation templates to aid you. Pagrashtak 14:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Not a prerequisite whatsoever, so I'm not really sure what you mean by that... Christopher Parham (talk) 15:57, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, it may not technically be a prerequisite, but it's pretty obvious that any article that can't get past GA nomination isn't going to have an FA star any time soon. Richard001 02:15, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Raul654 rushing FA promotion

Raul654 is rushing promotion of FAC with ongoing discussion, as for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Atheism. --BMF81 21:51, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

18 days on the FAC page is rushing it?... Raul654 21:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
It is the outstanding objections and the article nominator's striking of objections([1]) that should be of concern, not Raul's timing. --Allen3 talk 22:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I struck out 2 entries that were definitely already done, just to keep track of what has already been done; I can't help it if the original opposers aren't keeping up with the FAC. If you object, remove the strike-out and explain what hasn't been done. Simple as that. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-04-29 01:31Z
Just because it has become an FA doesn't mean we aren't going to address your concerns. The problem is that your concerns weren't very actionable. You said that two sections were "unconvincing", but provided no further elaboration. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-04-28 22:28Z
  • With broad, controversial articles like this, someone is bound to oppose for whatever reason. Raul made a solid judgement call here. — Deckiller 22:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Raul will always ignore comments like "this is a stupid article" or "I really like this" Buc 16:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Show/hide sorting

Why don't the Featured Articles categories use the cool-looking show/hide boxes like on Wikipedia:Good articles? It's a lot easier to sift through 1000+ articles that way. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I would say it makes it harder to sift through the articles, since to see them all you have to click "show" 20 times. Aside from that, the page is impossible to search and the icons make it look juvenile. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:59, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Then why do Good Articles and the official Content page use such sorting? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 23:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Because those pages are poorly designed and unattractive? Check the archives for further discussion on this issue, it has been brought up before. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:06, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] American bias?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_brat_%28U.S._subculture%29

How is that promoted when it is clearly just sympathetic to American "POV" ? It is on your FAC review now here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Military_brat_%28U.S._subculture%29

Porkshireman 13:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Random good/featured articles

I've created "random redirect pages" for featured and good articles. The list of GAs/FAs ist updated hourly. Link if you want, don't if you don't :) --Dapeteばか 08:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. I would replace "Random article" on the sidebar with these links in a heartbeat! This is the sort of making-good-content-visible thinking that is needed by this enterprise.
So, once you take the idea through a village pimp discussion [fun with typos], an abortive not-poll, and a few months of turgid silence followed by a unilateral decision by someone who can really ignore some rules—then I'd be happy to start using the link! –Outriggr § 00:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] So, question.

Can any article be a featured article if enough information with sources and all that is added? If not, that seems a bit unfair. --Kaizer13 23:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Any article that meets the criteria and is "notable" (in that it can survive a trip to AFD) can become a featured article. Raul654 23:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
(Well, this is what I wrote before the edit conflict. Which is whose evil twin is left as an exercise for the reader...)
In principle, yes, any article that meets the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria ("and all that") can be featured. The article will need to avoid deletion on WP:AFD too, though: the processes are pretty much orthogonal.
Are thinking of any particular sort of article? -- ALoan (Talk) 23:34, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Say that, in a pretty hypothetical sense, a somewhat overlooked animated feature film from the '90s? --Kaizer13 00:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
As long as the quality is there, I don't see why not. Raul654 00:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lock Featured Articles!

From New or non registered users anyway, they seem to be the target for spammers and this may help from destroy the credibility they so greatly achieved. `--Mrlego9 21:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Increasing exposure for our featured articles

The current situation for articles that are promoted to featured status seems to be (please correct or expand this where needed):

The process then seems to split, with some featured articles going on to appear in:

But those that don't appear in WP:TFA, or that have to wait a long time to appear there, are languishing at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests or not even being put up there. That was probably the motivation behind Wikipedia:Featured articles that have not been Today's featured article, though it is not clear how accurate that list is. My point is that it would be nice to have a place like the archives for TFA where each featured article has its own picture and lead text, even if it will not be appearing on the Main Page. That would then allow featured articles to be used elsewhere before they appear on the Main Page and even if they never appear on the Main Page (which some FA contributors don't seem to realise has been inevitable for some time unless the rate of appearing on the Main Page increases).

So what I am asking is whether the WP:FAC process can include the production of a lead text with picture (or a placeholder if no picture is suitable). That would also address the problem of people not noticing problems with the picture to be used on the Main Page until it appears there? Would FAC be the right point in the process to do this, or should it happen after promotion? Carcharoth 09:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The FAC process is overburdened and IMO, shouldn't take on an additional chore. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
OK. But in principle should each featured article end up with a "picture and lead text", so that it can be <gasp> featured somewhere. For example, in places like Wikipedia:Featured content, or used for a daily feature at the top of Wikipedia:Featured articles? The where and how can be sorted later, but I'm trying to find out how many people would like all featured articles to have this "picture and lead text" so that all featured articles (not just past TFAs) can be browsed using something like Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 2007 as opposed to Wikipedia:Featured article (which is a text list). It may be posssible to use "include" tags around the lead section to do this. I'm hoping CBD may be able to explain this further. Carcharoth 12:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not interested and don't think we need to increase exposure, but others may be interested in taking on this additional work (I think it's more important to sort out the date request situation, and there are only so many hours in a day :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
It is possible that the "additional work" involves a single edit to add include tags, and a single edit to add the featured article to an existing list (which might already be part of the existing workload). Carcharoth 12:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and set up a demo. I grabbed the first five 'blurbs' from the 'article of the day' request queue and set them up as sub-pages;
  1. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Ben Gurion International Airport
  2. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Mendip Hills
  3. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Manos: The Hands of Fate
  4. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Turkish language
  5. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Bart King
I then created a random pick list for these at Wikipedia:Featured_content/Articles and incorporated that into the existing random selection at Wikipedia:Featured content. For now I set it up so that there is a 50% chance of getting the blurb for one of these five articles and a 50% chance of getting one of the hundreds which have appeared on the Main page. That is easily adjustable, but the high percentage chance of getting these currently should help to demonstrate how they will be displayed. I used sub-pages to set up the blurbs, but the same effect could be generated (as Carcharoth describes) by placing inclusion tags on the featured article itself and then transcluding the article directly. This is how featured lists are currently handled on WP:FC (see this for an example of the edits required), and the articles would if anything be easier to format this way. Either way it is a matter of setting up the blurb (on sub-page or with inclusion tags) and adding the title to Wikipedia:Featured_content/Articles for each article to be displayed. A huge task for a few people, but if everyone who wants their featured article to be displayed set up the blurb themselves it'd be a trivial task. --CBD 13:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Is no-one else interested in that demo? I've been trying it out and it seems to work OK. Having considered some of the implications of the use of include tags, I've gone off that idea somewhere. I'd suggest a "subpage text plus picture" stage for every featured article, with the nominator of the featured article (or one of the primary authors) being the logical person to do this. It will often just take a minute or two to copy paragraphs from the lead section, and pick a suitable (free) image from the article. Then, if promoted, the article can start being used in this fashion straightaway at various locations around Wikipedia, as well as entering the Main Page queue if desired. But what is really needed is more input - anyone? Carcharoth 01:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I;m late, but this sounds like a good idea to me. Having pre-prepared blurbs for the main page would be useful, as that way it would more likely that the original author composes the blurb, as opposed to the person who puts up the main page request. Opabinia regalis 01:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reducing History section

What about "History" and "Historical biography"? I think it makes sense from a browsability perspective. The section has become quite large and is something of a grab-bag. Marskell 15:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

GMTA — I was going to propose the same a few days ago. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Meh, I'm lukewarm on the idea. I agree that the history section is a large grab-bag ("History" is, almost by defintion, a catch-all). I'm not keen on splitting it the way you propose (historical biography versus historical other) but I agree that something is in order Raul654 21:40, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I had just stoppped by for the same topic. "History" can be subdivided into various paras, each addressing a particular topic (like the division in FL-Sports and Games. How about "US History"; "Indian History"; "European History"; "Others" as the four subgroups.

[edit] Alfred Russell Wallace

Why is this article listed in the economics section? Sheep81 01:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps somebody confused him with Marx? I've removed him - the article is a GA undergoing review for FA. Someone must have been a little overenthusiastic and added it in anticipation. Richard001 02:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I promoted it earlier today. Raul654 02:33, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Small Bronze star

I can see the small bronze star at the top right in Monobook, but not in classic skin. Why not & can it be fixed? -- SGBailey 09:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The template {{featured article}} creates the star. According to Template talk:Featured article, it was turned off at one point for skins other than Monobook because it caused problems with page format. But it seems that problem was fixed, so who knows. Your question might receive a better answer on that talk page. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tree of Life

Could also have its own section, by splitting Biology, medicine, and psychology. It's also a long section, and it seems odd having Tuberculosis beside Tyrannosaurus. Marskell 09:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Standing lists at Wikiprojects

To facilitate throughput to GA and FA, I'm trialling this; I've listed Standing Lists of large articles with substantial content which may be within striking distance of GA with varying amounts of work WRT formatting and copyediting. Some are already being worked on but I'm seeing if this increases collaboration. So far I've done this on WP mammals talk page and WP Birds collab pages. Be interesting to see if more of these come through cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 01:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Nice thoughts! I think this idea will help in the maintenance of FAs and GAs. I suggest you create a template that could be implemented easily in all wikiprojects. And Some wikiprojects have already implemented this idea (check WP India). CG 18:25, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Elements of Ideal Article - Extant?

I vaguely recall a page about how to create the 'ideal' or 'best' Wikipedia article, and I'm at a complete loss to find it. Maybe I'm totally making this up or maybe with all the emphasis on Featured Articles it got cannibablized but if anyone here remembers anything like that please let me know. Or even if you know something similar, just going through all the pages about editing and layout and style hasn't helped that much. For instance, one of the only this I remember about this (imagined?) page was that it described how the Lead section should be short enough that someone just wanting somewhere between a dictionary level definition and a bit broader an overview could read just that first paragraph or two but that it shouldn't be so long that you end writing your whole article there. Does or did this page exist?

Wikipedia:The perfect article. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 22:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection

Renewing invitation for discussion of the policy - there has been a lot of debate today. Richard001 08:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Breaking down categories

Would it not be a good idea to start breaking down some of the more populated categories. Break history down by period, for example, or media down by film, character, tv series etc. It's getting quite difficult to read now and it's not accessible enough to the casual reader. DevAlt 09:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see cities, countries, parks, etc. broken out of geography and places. Dalf | Talk 09:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Red-linked template on talk page after move

I moved the featured article Paulo (Lost) to Nikki Fernandez and Paulo after Nikki Fernandez was merged into it. Now, on the talk page, it says the peer review and featured article candidacy is archived but the links are broken. How do I fix this? --thedemonhog talk • edits 02:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

You messed with the ArticleHistory template and broke it [2]. I have fixed it. Raul654 03:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. --thedemonhog talk • edits 03:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taggism

To what was hastily posted recently at WP:AN, I may add that the matter inexorably goes on, affecting Final Fantasy VI so far. Seems that the upcoming articles in month's queue are less likely to be affected. Brand спойт 21:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FA for Search Engine Optimization in wrong Category

The featured article Search Engine Optimization is currently listed under "Computers and video games" at this article page. The correct category would be "Business, economics and finance". See where the article is located in the Wikipedia Category hierarchy. Business and Economics -> Marketing -> Internet Marketing -> Search Engine Marketing -> Search Engine Optimization Could somebody fix this please? Thanks. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 01:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, I find this suggestion absurd. Search engine optimization is a heck of a lot more closely related to computers than it is to marketing. Raul654 16:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the Computers category. Hello, Carsten! Jehochman Hablar 23:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wonderbra

Wikipedia stinks to an all time low. Are we really this stuck up for featured articles? Brettr 07:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I completely concur. A bra, a satanic-themed metal band, TWO soccer teams, video games....Sheesh. Out of everything on in the universe in all of history, why are these topics considered "featured"? What a joke, no wonder Wikipedia is sniggered at when I try to encourage people to use it. Talshiarr 13:13, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Featured article status is a designation that an article is of high quality. It has nothing to do with how important that topic is (which is a subjective thing at that). I'll also note that over the same time period we featured those articles you named, we also featured the history of Puerto Rico , Hippocrates, Boston Massachuessets, Antioxidants, the Turkish language, and the 1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash. Raul654 14:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

This is ridiculus. If we have written a good quality article about Wonderbra, we should be proud of that. One of the strength of Raul's choices is that he selects a wide range of article that properly reflect the spread of writing talents in Wikipedia. Wikipedia's strength lies in the fact that it should be possible to write an FA about most topics and few encyclopedias will have coverage as good as ours for Wonderbra or a satanic-themed metal band. We have a vast range of quality articles, I think its a good thing to demostrate that in FA selection. WjBscribe 14:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Plus neither of them have specified what exactly is wrong with having a bra, a satanic-themed metal band, two soccer teams (two? there was Norwich City and who eles) or a video game on the main page. Buc 14:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
The Wonderbra is a type of clothing and has just as much right as Toga (if it was an FA) to be featured on TFA. I suspect however, that the trolls above would think something related to Ancient Rome is much more "encyclopedic" than something related to contemporary society. Prejudices against Popular culture is not taken account when FAs appear on the main page. GizzaDiscuss © 03:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
As someone who has gone out of my way to make numerous contributions, corrections, and starting articles from scratch on Wikipedia and enjoy very much the opportunity to do so, I resent being called a "troll" simply because I expressed an admittedly minority opinion that think some of the choices of topic for featured article status seem quite frivolous and not what I or probably a fair number of others would consider traditional encyclopedic material, and I freely admit that's a bias I might need to work on dispelling. I look at the Featured Article spot as a place where articles of potential interest to vast swaths of the readership of Wikipedia on serious topics can be shared (no, not necessarily on Ancient Rome), and I have no problem with probably half or even more of the choices that have been placed there, and I'm not in any way implying that the others I don't agree with have no place on Wikipedia at all. I just feel there is too much of a tendency to place more bias on topics of limited current pop culture interest versus equally well-written and researched general topics. Just my opinion, I am NOT a troll, and I thank you all for the place to express it. Apologies for the admittedly emotional initial reply here, I didn not intend it to come across so harshly as I see it has. Talshiarr 10:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Weather or not it is "traditional encyclopedic material" (whatever that means) has nothing to do with it appearing on the main page. Raul tries to vary the topic as much as possible and my guess is "traditional encyclopedic material" all come from the same 2 or 3 topics. If you'd like to see a certain article on the main page go to the request page. But I still don't really understand what's wrong with articles such as Wonderbra. Is "traditional encyclopedic material" something a long history? well Bras (which can't appear on the main page as it is not a FA) have been around over 100 years. Buc 17:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why does importance matter to FA?

Why does it seem importance to projects matters if they are to become featured?

This seems to be common argument that they are just not important enough. For example Jordanhill railway station did not get FA because it was not important or well known enough. However, to contradict this, a district in London, Moorgate has until very recently been a featured article for almost two years. It was of low importance to a project.

Simply south 14:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

(a) Your premise is simply false. Importance is not relavant. (b) Jordanhill failed FAC, but it's clear from reading the nom that that failure had nothing to do with the article's importance. Raul654 14:25, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chopping up an FA...

Dear all, I have put forth a discussion here about a current FA (though one which feasibly could go to FAR at some stage), with an ambiguous name which realistically probably should be a readirect...all $0.02 much welcome here...or there..cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

What I meant to add was, would this be best discussed at FAR (given it's an FA?)? cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yet another Pacific battle featured today

(this orginally appeared on the Main Page talk section. I've since realised it belongs here)

Does anybody know how many Pacific WW2 battles are featured articles?

Sixteen.

That's out of about 20 featured articles that are about WW2 battles. This isn't including WW2 military strategy and personalities, just battles. Does anybody else believe that this is grossly unrepresentative of the importance of the Pacific side of WW2? I know it's a contraversial thing to say, but some think that the crux of WW2 was the German Eastern front. That is, the fight between Germany and the Soviet Union. Certainly nobody could seriously contend that the Pacific theatre was the more important than the European one in terms of the nature and outcome of the war. So why the bias of featured articles towards the former?

Don't get me wrong, the Pacific war was important and deserves to be extensively convered, but I think it is wrong to have so much of it, when there are many many other great articles that can be featured. I don't want this to descend into yet another dull bun fight over systemic bias within Wikipedia, but I think it is worth considering that too little correction is being made for the fact that many more good articles are centred on the Western world. When choosing the 'featured article' consideration must be made of whether, because of the uneven distribution of technology, internet access and population in the world, such a bias might emerge.

Whatever the reason, I really do think that sixteen an out-of-proportion figure when compared with the proliferation other, similar, featured articles.193.60.159.61 08:16, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

This perhaps may be due to a higher proportion of Wikipedians being from America and not Europe. GizzaDiscuss © 09:24, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's the point. Plus, many people in Europe won't use the English version of W. Whatever the reason it needs addressing.193.60.159.61 09:45, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Well forget about WWII, there are huge imbalances in all FA topics. The last time I checked, there was one FA on an African country. There are at least ten for every English speaking country (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and heaps for India). And there wouldn't even be many African FAs on the African languages Wikipedias (and other developing countries for that matter) since far less people can read and write well and far less people have internet access. GizzaDiscuss © 10:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Two African countries actually: Libya and Cameroon. South African Wikipedians have also brought a few SA location articles up to FA status, and Chad is currently up at FAC... Though it does appear that all of these are from editors writing from basically industrialized countries. The only FA I know of written from a developing country is Maraba Coffee, though the writer is a Brit, not a Rwandan. - BanyanTree 02:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
South Africa is also a Featured Article, so there are four. Lack of access to internet and reference materials is a serious obstacle to writing Wikipedia articles from developing countries; I did my best when I lived in Cameroon, but it's much, much easier from Japan or the U.S. than it ever ways in Cameroon. — Brian (talk) 02:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, there's a variety of proximate factors related to contributor background and interest, rather than any ultimate plan when you find lopsided coverage. The "offender" in the case of the Pacific theatre is User:Cla68, who wants to cover the area. Good for him. I don't think anyone is setting out to suggest that Eastern European theatre wasn't the most important of the war. If you'd like to redress the balance, get to work on the Battle of Stalingrad and find some mates to pitch in. Marskell 13:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
It bears saying that articles are promoted to Featured Article status on one criterion only—their quality. The solution is, as has been said, to get other articles up to FA standard to redress the balance. We certainly can't deny an article FA status on the grounds that "we already have ten FA articles on hurricanes". The point in the OP is however taken, and it goes beyond an imbalance on WWII articles: topic 'headline' articles such as Air, Chemistry, French Literature, or Africa are not FAs, and even in some cases poor compared to some of their underlying articles. (No reflection on those particular articles.) Yet these topics are at the very core of a serious reference work. We can't and mustn't stop people bringing articles on minor topics to FA-status, but we do need to get core articles there as well. — BillC talk 16:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking of that the other day. I keep taking cats to FAC, while zoology remains an awful page. Marskell 18:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
No, we already have 50 FAs on hurricanes. Otherwise, I agree with your point. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
As Bill points out the criterion is quality, and we can't legislate against systematic bias. Both visual art and classical music are terribly under-represented, though the last few weeks have been encouraging. Ceoil 21:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely. FA criteria should definitely be based around quality and not importance. But ideally, we the Wikipedia community should improve the more important articles. Of course nobody should be forced to FA articles they have no interest in but they should be at least encouraged to FA the more important article in their topic of interest. Otherwise, creating the Wikipedia:Vital articles page and the Assessment system was a complete waste of time. What is the point of tagging pages as "Top-importance" if everybody ignores it and strive to GA/FA low-importance articles? GizzaDiscuss © 23:08, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I think I might have misunderstood: I thought FAs were ones that have been the article on the Main Page. If this is the case, there really ought to be another criterion for selection. If the only reason is to make Wikipedia seem (rightly) diverse and interesting, and thus draw more people into it, then this reason is sufficient. Having the same old, same old, appearing on the Main Page is really off-putting.
If I'm wrong and featured articles are not ones that have appeared on the Main Page then this thread is useless and I'm sorry I started it. Of course there is no reason to exclude a well-written article from being on a list of well-written articles just because the subject matter is over-represented. And either way, the "offender" has been doing a lot of good work and deserves nothing but praise for improving many articles.
So which way is it? FAs as previous Main Pagers, or FA just a variation on GA status?193.60.159.61 09:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
"I thought FAs were ones that have been the article on the Main Page." - featured articles are the articles we have identified as being the highest quality ones on Wikipedia. Wikipedia puts one of them on the main page every day. Some have already been on the main page, some have not. The criteria for designating an article as a "featured article" (intentionally) have nothing to do with article quality. Raul654 chooses from the featured articles and picks one to go on the main page every day. JusticeGuy 13:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Featured articles indeed represent the highest quality on Wikipedia. To get there, they pass a tough review process at Featured Article Candidates. They are assessed against a number of benchmarks, though really all these boil down to one word: quality. Articles can be removed by a similar review process if it is felt that they no longer meet the criteria. Once promoted to FA status, an article is eligible to be considered for a candidate for displaying on the front page. Raul654 chooses one from the available pool; the choice is his, though he tries to create variety in both geography and topic. A few articles, though of sufficient quality to meet the FA criteria, are probably not suitable candidates for the main page and will not appear. Since currently the average net rate of promotion to FA status is over 1.0/day, there are more featured articles than can be displayed. Although there are some similarities between the Good Article and Featured Article processes, FA status is considerably harder to achieve and maintain. So FA is not "just" a variation on GAs. Hope this helps, — BillC talk 17:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
The "vital articles" page is a joke that perpetuates the ages-old Eurocentric bias in Western reference works. Most of its categories feature a bunch of Westerners with a token figure or two from other cultures. It needs a major overhaul before FA authors should take it seriously. — Brian (talk) 23:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Because no one ever pays attention to it. I doubt anyone would object to an overhaul (in fact, Silence began one, IIRC), but no one actually does it. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 23:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] change FA number to resemble GA number

{{GA number}} has the article count on the template itself, {{FA number}} does not, this makes updates to the Featured article count harder to track and seperate from edits to the Featured article page itself.  Tcrow777  talk  23:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Raul654 (for promotions) and Marskell/Joel (for demotions) are doing fine keeping up with the FA count. Why fix what isn't broken? Gimmetrow 02:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Why not improve what isn't broken, a unified way of counting Good articles and Featured articles would be better, and yes I have read Instruction creep.  Tcrow777  talk  05:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Never mind, I have been thinking it over. Why fix what is not broken?  Tcrow777  talk  21:20, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] references - limit page space occuption

i notice that most, if not all FA articles has references counting upwards of 100. What this does is take up a lot of space in the wikiarticle and somehow, it does not look good aesthetically (functionally - i have nothing against it!). I took a stab at one of the articles - Harbhajan Singh#References to limit the space occupied by the references section. If everyone is OK with this, we can look to having a bot that implements this across atleast all FA articles. --Kalyan 06:11, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Erm, bad idea; the article is no longer printable after your change. Kirill 06:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
And, mirrors lose references. Please don't do that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

kewl., removed the meta-structure. --Kalyan 10:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FA trivia

TFA Building of the World Trade Center was the 1400th FA.

[edit] Recommendation

I once saw a while ago a link to recommend a featured article. How do I recommend one?

You go to this page, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates and follow the instructions there. Medvedenko 03:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article or list

I'm hoping to make Unassisted triple play of featured standard, but I'm not sure if it should be a FL or FA. Buc 08:41, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

That looks like a list. Medvedenko 03:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
The vast majority of the content is in prose form and describes the features of a single topic. The fact that the article includes a table does not make it any less an article, as it stands. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Error. Certain Miscommunication

In the second paragraph of the article, this is written: "Thus, about one in 1,270 articles is listed here." I'm not sure what that is referring to. Would someone please look into the matter. -Avkrules 08:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

"At present, there are 1,498 featured articles, of a total of 1,911,637 articles on Wikipedia. Thus, about one in 1,270 articles is listed here."
Take the number of articles on Wikipedia (1,911,637), and divide by the number of featured articles (1,498). The result is approximately 1270. Raul654 12:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Former Featured Articles Wikiproject

According to Wikipedia:Former featured articles, there are over 400 articles that at one time met the Featured article criteria. Many of these were demoted for minor reasons that could easily be fixed by a dedicated group of editors. This project aims to dramatically increase the number of featured articles by first focusing on those former FAs closest to meeting the criteria, and working its way to those in need of more help. This would be done through scheduled collaborations on said articles. While all editors are welcome to join, editors with experience creating FAs, especially those with strong copyediting skills and/or knowledge of MoS are most needed. There is no reason for wikipedia to have any "former" FAs. It should be top priority to maintain them. "Once an FA, always an FA." is the eventual goal of this project. This project would also serve as a "rescue squad" for articles under FA review. Please click the above link and add your name in order to join. Wrad 14:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Splitting

The current categorisaton system on this page is too bulky, and certainly for me it doesn't help me find immediately any particular sets of articles I want to find. Can I suggest at the very least, we create new categories for films, animals, cities, hurricanes, books, politicians, and individual wars. Does anyoen object to this? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 17:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I object. Those would be redundant with the ones we already have. Raul654 17:49, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah me too. I don't get this, all thoughs thing already have categories. Buc 17:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
My point is not that they are uncategorised, but that many of them are now so full they aren't helpful. When I've been looking for FAs on cities, I have to trawl a massive cat that contains a whole load of stuff on countries, and parks, and other things. It took me a while, and while looking I ended up clicking through to articles I wasn't interested in because their names were ambiguous This isn't helpful, certainly not to me, though I have all the time in the world at the moment, and especially not to Average Pablo who, according to research, will spend about nine seconds on this page before giving up. We need subcats, and soon. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok subcats sounds like a better idea but there would need to be some sort of "at least X articles" otherwise people be asking "If films, cities and hurricanes can get categories why not other things"? Buc 16:25, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] William Shakespeare

Hello. I was browsing the FA page and noticed good old Bill listed as an FA. Pleasantly surprised, I clicked on the link, only to find no star, and no such designation on the talk page. Is it mistakenly listed there? 69.202.41.119 15:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

It was promoted within the last hour; the talk page and articlehistory will be updated by a Bot later (as indicated on the talk page at the {{FAC}} template). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I just added Shakespeare to the FA list here within the last hour. (It was one of 16 articles promoted) GimmeBot will be along shortly (within the next few hours) to update the article's talk page. As far as putting a star in the article itself - I make no effort to do that (long story). Raul654 15:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Thanks! And congrats to everyone involved in making it a featured article. It must have been quite an undertaking! 69.202.41.119 15:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
This caused me some confusion. I was directed to the discussion here. The other nominators will be pleased. Thanks, Raul. RedRabbit 16:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what else can be done to clear up the confusion in the lag between promotion and talk page update. It's in bold red at {{FAC}}, yet this comes up after every promotion. Does anyone have any suggestions? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

We could put it in the instructions at the top of the FAC, but those instructions are already too long, IMO. Raul654 16:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
We need to do something, not sure what. Editors update the talk page themselves, which stalls the bot and causes extra work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I propose we expand the instructions on the FAC template itself, since the instructions at WP:FAC are already too long. We need to make this more clear; it continues to come up, even though the template clearly spells it out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Why expand them? We should just use the blink tag :) Raul654 17:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Over-my-frustrated-head alert. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
The blink tag does exactly what it sounds like - it makes web page text blink (e.g, repeatedly appear and disappear). It's quite possibly the most irritating thing you can put on a webpage - but it gets stuff noticed. (For an example of blinking text, see here) But I was joking when I suggested it. Raul654 17:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
ah, ha, I see :-) OK, what if we expanded the instructions at WP:FAC, but within a show/hide cap-thingie? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Surely there is a way to close the review at the same time that Raul moves the transclusions. Personally, I think Raul should close the reviews, rather than just move the "{{FAC NAME HERE}}" bit from one page to another. Maybe have a template at the top of each FAC that can detect whether or not the FAC is present on one page or the other? It sounds fiendishly difficult, but I think it can be done using some form of includeonly thingy. We'd need a template wizard though. Carcharoth 17:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • It's a ton of manual work; the whole point of GimmeBot is to help Raul avoid the tedious template and talk page work. When Raul promotes only four or five at a time, I try to add the star with a note that minimizes confusion in the interim; when there's 33 at a time, the manual work is a bit much, and it's better to wait for the bot. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Could Raul trigger the bot? Or, perhaps better, would it work for Raul to simply copy the contents of the FAC page, cut and paste the promotions to one list and the failures to another, and save those to pages living in GimmeBot's user space? Then GimmeBot could use those as inputs to trigger all the related actions. If people edit the FACs in the meantime, so be it. Mike Christie (talk) 18:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
The bot sometimes requires manual intervention, because editors often mess up the talk pages; the idea was for Raul not to have to spend his time on this, since he's busy enough with the rest. GimmeBot doesn't need a new trigger; it uses the existing archives. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
That wasn't quite what I meant, but after some thought, I've realised that my suggestion wouldn't work anyway. Carcharoth 20:03, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The solution is very simple. Anyone who doesn't like how it is currently done is welcome to do the job themselves or write their own bot to do it. Likewise, anyone who complains or interferes by doing part of the job, by that action volunteers to do the entire job. Gimmetrow 02:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm...I didn't realize I had touched off such a nerve with my rather simple query. Apologies to all...all I wanted to know was why one page said one thing, while another page said differently. That's all. And it was answered satisfactorily by two editors above...again sorry if I somehow offended people. 69.202.41.119 02:24, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry. Your query was fine. I'm rather responding to edits like these. Gimmetrow 07:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Volunteers to close nominations at Featured Sound Candidates

FSC now has well-developed criteria and a backlog of nominations. It would be most appreciated if one or more people volunteeered to act, informally, as the closer(s) of nominations on the promotions and demotions page on a regular basis.

Thus far, it has been a small workload. Volunteers would need to be very circumspect in their reviews, or to avoid reviewing (to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest). The task, from time to time, is to arrrive at a balanced assessment of the reviews and the nominations in relation to the criteria, and to perform the mechanical task of closing. The ability to interpret the criteria is necessary.

Interested editors are asked to declare their willingness on the talk page. Tony 01:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured in two or more categories?

Can an article be nominated as a featured article in both "Culture and society" and "Mathematics"? Someone has suggested infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (currently in an AfD discussion) as a featured article, and it seems to fit both. Michael Hardy 22:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

No, not in two categories. That said, that article has had enough eyes looking at it as of late... who knows. Maybe it could pull off an FAC. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article about a Library?

Hi, I am attempting to improve the article Oakland Public Library. The problem is, I have no example of an excellent library article to model this one after. If someone could point me to a GA or FA library article, that would be much appreciated. Thanks. Paul Haymon 00:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's see....and excellent article about a library, or an article about an excellent library? Minneapolis Public Library is a reasonable article about a library; I'll leave other appelations to others for now. Michael Hardy 01:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The former is what I meant. Unfortunately the article Minneapolis Public Library doesn't seem to have a rating. Are there any FA or GA public library articles in Wikipedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paul Haymon (talk • contribs) 05:31, August 22, 2007 (UTC).

No, there are not. If there were, they would probably be in the 'education' section. Raul654 13:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. That's unfortunate. Might there be at least any A-class articles? What can I look to to improve the article? On what basis should it then be evaluated, if there are no examples? Paul Haymon 07:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)