Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/Archive 5

Archive 1

←

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

→

Archive 10

Irish phonology

Well, I'm pleased that Irish phonology, which I wrote pretty much single-handedly, is today's featured article, but I'm also very surprised, since I never requested it, and there was no notification on the talk page that it was going to happen. How exactly is Today's Featured Article decided, anyway??? —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 05:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

My magic-8 ball. Raul654 (talk) 06:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC) (PS - there was talk page notification a week ago)

I see what happened - there was another message posted to the talk page just a few minutes later, and that second message was the only one I saw on my watchlist. At any rate, I feel a bit like a homemaker confronted with unexpected guests: if I'd known I was going to have visitors, I would have tidied the place up a bit! —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 16:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

You may want to use this time to read up on WP:OWNERSHIP instead. MaxVeers (talk) 23:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I make no claim to OWN the article, but it is a simple fact that I wrote it and brought it to FA status virtually single-handedly. Since I didn't realize featured articles could become TFA without a request being made, and since it's highly unlikely anyone else would have requested it, I was naturally surprised to see it was TFA. And if I had realized it was about to become TFA, I certainly would have looked it over critically once more to make sure it was looking its best, not because I "own" it, but because I know no one else would have. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 05:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

You have to admit though, it was your fault for not noticing you had guests who entered at the same time you answered the door bell for the person trying to sell vacuum cleaners? Nil Einne (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

You don't claim to own it then compare it to your house? The internet doesn't cater to your personal beliefs and heritage you know, I actually agree with you, I am also suprised that such a minute and topically irrelevant article became the FA.Hebrewpridehebrewpower (talk) 11:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Pardon me, I have nothing to do with this argument and care very little about the issue at hand, however I have two cents to throw in. First, although Angr has given up ownership of the article by posting it in Wikipedia, you Hebrewpridehebrewpower are slightly deranged to deny him any feeling of pride for his work or the parental sense of creation. Just because we don't own our children doesn't mean we can't care about them. Also, the arbitrary and unsystematic system by which featured pages are chosen is.... arbitrary and unsystematic. Don't worry, I'll do more than complain, I've got ideas too! Random selection of articles obviously wouldn't work: You don't want an article with twelve standards/disputes/point of view banners at the top to be a featured page. Unannounced selection of an article is also risky: As Angr pointed out, s/he felt the article wasn't ready. This is a serious concern. Imagine a junior high student (although kids these days probably start using the internet from the womb by Wifi) in Ireland checks Wikipedia for the first time to get some ideas for some assignment, sees the Irish Phonology article, finds a mistake, thinks Wikipedia is junk, and goes back to Google to find a better source. Wikipedia's academic respect just dropped another point, and it's getting low already. Suggestion: work a week or two in advance, post a notice in the discussion page that an article is up for featuring, let the editors and vandals do their business earlier so the article will be ready by the time it hits the front page. Also, a little more... democracy could help. 202.220.172.236 (talk) 13:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Standards should be maintained

Visitors to Wikipedia could assume that the day's featured article is of high standard. Fine. So should the teaser article on the Main Page but it often leaves a lot to be desired, and today's is no exception. For instance the lead says the Crusaders "are" a team "that" competes. Surely "that" should be "who". The fourth sentence says "it" was formed, when talking about the team previously described as "they". It then reverts to "their" fifth title. Etc. Very poor indeed. 222.153.65.195 (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

In British English, teams are referred to in the plural, so "The Crusaders are a team that compete" is correct. "It was formed" refers to the formation of the entity; "their fifth title" refers to the team. As a BE speaker I see no problem, except that "competes" should be "compete". EamonnPKeane (talk) 12:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Critique of today's article

See Wikipedia_talk:Featured_articles#ESRB_re-rating_of_The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

NFCC#9

The future featured article pages need to be in Category:Wikipedia non-free content criteria exemptions so that my bot doesn't remove the fair use images from them. I'm not sure how the system is setup here so I'm not sure how to handle it. BJ^Talk 20:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Nomination

Where do I place my nominations for the daily FA, my vote goes for Persecution of Jews, it is a well researched well written highly relevant article that I believe would make the perfect feature article. Anyone else agree?Hebrewpridehebrewpower (talk) 11:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:FAC to nominate an article for featured status, though, I warn you, that one is a long way off. J Milburn (talk) 13:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Clock-face pic

Is the picture illustrating Chrono Trigger (Image:Horloge-republicaine1.jpg) as today's TFA really public domain? Surely a clock doesn't count as a painting or a drawing. And exactly how appropriate is it to illustrate a video game with a photograph of an obscure clockface design from Revolutionary France?

Peter ^Isotalo 07:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't comment on the copyright status of the image, but I think we should have some image that conveys the theme of the featured article. The main page looks plain and off balance every time we have a pop culture article with no free images. A free image that is somewhat related to the general theme of the article can do the job of visually attracting the readers attention to the article, and that's better than nothing. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Neilston

Isn't it about time it the Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Protection template was taken off Neilston? I'm looking to edit the UK place infobox but can't cause the FA protection on an old article is holding it up. - Yorkshirian (talk) 00:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

No image again

I would once again like to voice my opinion that a loosely-related image is better than no image. In the case of tomorrow's (April 18th) TFA, I would recommend some free stock photo of the rainforest. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

TFA decorum

Considering that we're currently featuring a film focusing on cannibal gore and sexualized violence (and with pics like this in the article) are we to assume that we no longer have any main page pariahs among our FAs?

Peter ^Isotalo 06:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Redundant double bolding in TFA

We have a link in bold in the first sentence and at the end of the section (i.e. more). don't you think it would be useless having redundancy. why not remove internal linking in the first line and just have this down below link. Sushant gupta (talk) 10:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, the proper place for this would be WP:ERRORS conveniently located at the top of this page. ☯Ferdia O'Brien ^(T)/_(C) 10:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Moved from WP:ERRORS. Woody (talk) 14:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I personally like the double bolding and don't find it redundant. The link on the first line is what the reader sees first and will expect it to be linked. It is the main subject of it and so should be linked. Woody (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

travolta image is lame

No offense, but Image:Be travolta 100px.jpg is not a particularly good picture, and is not worthy of being on the main page. Image:Battlefield earth poster.jpg would be much better.

I'd be bold and switch it myself, but I've decided instead to share my opinion here instead - and hope that one of you will heed my call. Kingturtle (talk) 21:14, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

FA procedure

In connection with the widely derided selection of Elderly Instruments as TFA, I started a discussion on that article's talk page about flaws in the TFA system. The article's creator, User:Laser brain, felt the discussion was out of place, and on his request I moved it here. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 16:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, for those who don't remember, here are the procedures as they went during the Ernest Emerson debates: a few of us were concerned that featuring articles that looked like advertisements on the main page might damage our reputation. So it was suggested - not that the article be demoted, as it had met all FA criteria - but simply that the article be replaced with another article that better represented our work. A straw poll was overwhelmingly in favour of this idea. This is the response we got:

I don't know why this poll is being run; Raul isn't likely to replace a mainpage article, period. Just ask him. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandy is correct. Raul654 18:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

End of story.
Oh, by the way - a few weeks later SandyGeorgia was Raul's deputy. Is there anyone else who believes that this stinks? Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 03:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I think you're all alone on that one. For the record, the "cabal of the concerned" were not out to "simply replace" the article. The agenda was deletion and scathing personal attacks made against the author. To say otherwise is a bald-faced lie.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 05:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No one's lying here. I can't speak for everyone who weighed in on the debate, but the poll was a simple Replace/Keep one. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 11:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, User:SandyGeorgia contacting User:Mike Searson (who just happens to be the author of Ernest Emerson) to get him to stand up for him on a talk page doesn't exactly weaken the impression of impropriety and camaraderie. I wasn't the one who brought in the word "cabal", but jeez... I don't think anyone who engages in that sort of back room dealings, rather than standing up for himself, deserves to be an admin, much less an FA deputy. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 15:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Raul did anything wrong here. There is not currently a rule against having an article about a business as the featured article of the day. You cannot complain that someone does not enforce a rule that doesn't exist. I do believe, though, that we, as a community, should establish a convention that articles about existing companies and specific products currently on the market are not eligible for selection as the featured article of the day. They can still be (and are desired to be) featured articles, but cannot appear as the main page article. This would be a change from our current practice - for example, on May 14 we had a video game called Super Smash Bros. Melee. Under my proposal, that would no longer be permitted. (I certainly don't think we should be in the business of choosing which kinds of commercial articles are ok and which are not - we need to either allow all of them or allow none.) We may also wish to consider other restrictions, for example, current candidates for political office. (I am not supporting that particular restriction, just suggesting it for brainstorming purposes.) I definitely think, though, that we should restrict commercial articles. --B (talk) 19:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think commercial articles should be restricted, per my comment made at WP:ANI. Here it is for convenience:

"[...] as the people who support this article's placement on the main page have noted, there is no rule that states commercial subjects are not allowed on the main page. I also think that it is fruitless to even try to create a rule like that; a lot of controversy and opposition will no doubt ensue. I think the most logical route, especially on a wiki, should be to go with the simplest solution. In the case of main page articles, the simplest solution is to allow any FA articles to be shown. If we begin to limit any type of article, then it will be difficult to figure out whether certain articles that are on the edge of an unsteady criterion should be shown. Also, it can be argued that if, say, all company articles were not allowed, who's to say that articles such as Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder, does not indirectly advertise for Microsoft? Etc., etc."

Gary King (talk) 20:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Perfectly agree. Well said. ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 21:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

There are, however, rules about respecting consensus. A strong majority of editors pushed for changes in the way TFAs are chosen here. Raul promptly reverted the change and proceeded to ignore gathering opposition to their decision. I really think that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we choose TFAs on wikipedia. One man has all of the power. That is just wrong. Wrad (talk) 22:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough — I am not familiar enough with the actual process of selecting main page articles to comment on it. My comment above was for which articles can be chosen as main page articles, not how to choose a main page article — which appears to be what the link you posted is discussing. Gary King (talk) 22:22, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you were right on to say what you said. I think that Raul is a good editor who is part of a system which is fundamentally flawed and needs to be fixed. Wrad (talk) 22:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Wrad's got my point. During the Emerson debate there was a widespread concern in the community about the outward appearance Wikipedia gave when featuring corporate articles. This was met by an arrogant "we don't care". Now history repeats itself, as again the community consensus is being ignored. I'm not promoting any particular policy change, I'd just like to see a system that was slightly more responsive and slightly less dictatorial. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 22:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The so-called "Emerson Debate" was mostly driven by hoplophobes. The article was about a Custom knifemaker who founded a knife company. A handful of ninnies who cannot fathom that some people make or use knives primarily as weapons were joined by a few loudmouths who think unless the featured article of the day isn't about some effeminate and obscure deceased crown prince of Austria that it doesn't belong on the mainpage; a twerp or two who thinks if a business is mentioned it must be an advertisement may have chimed in as well. Personal attacks were made against me and my family. I was spammed over this and some overweight loser that used to be an admin even told me that he wanted to lose a fistfight to me in the worst way possible. And over what? That an article I wrote made it to the Front Page? That it beat out an article about William Howard Taft? That someone might have read of a knife used by NASA and might think about buying a pocketknife in the future? Or *gasp* someone used articles from knife magazines to source an article about a CUSTOM KNIFEMAKER!!!! You call a herd of armwavers like that "widespread concern"? Histrionics seem to be your forte'.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 04:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's the most deranged, paranoid entry I've read in quite a while; I'm sorry if the episode messed you up so bad. Look, I've been to the military, I enjoy hunting and target shooting, and I own more knives than I need to butter my bread. Austrian royalty I know less about, though I'm eager to learn. My personal background has nothing to do with this, however. I can't speak for others, but my views and those of anyone I'd bother to engage with had nothing to do with crazy left- or right-wing political views (typical exchange: Anon: "This whole piece reads like a P.R. brochure. Are you serious that this represents the "best work on Wikipedia"?", Mike: "Nice comment coming from a vandal. Sorry they banned knives in the UK and the article frightens you."). Nutcases aside, the overwhelming majority of comments were on the line of "This reads like an advert", and you know that, so don't try to distort it by some straw man argument. Now, when that is the impression given to the millions of people who visit Wikipedia every day, is it smart to put it up on the Main Page? Just because it might strictly formally adhere to some rules most people don't even know about? Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 13:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not familiar with the Emerson debate, and I've never really seen an article I didn't like on the front page. I just feel strongly that the system needs to be changed. There are more FAs than TFA slots now, so we have a clear choice everyday of what should be on the front page. I think that should be a community choice. Wrad (talk) 12:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Surtsey

Surtsey was demmed featured in 2005 but still hasn't been featured? Why? ~Meldshal42_{Hit me}^{What I've Done} 19:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Not every featured article can make WP:TFA. There are more than 365.25 nominated in a year, so some get left out. Ral315 (talk) 06:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Stricter standards

The feature of Elderly Instruments on the Main Page caused a great commotion, and was reminiscent of the similar outcry over Ernest Emerson a few months ago. Regardless of the merits of the arguments, such a stir should cause concern, because it reflects Wikipedia’s outward image. Even ill-informed comments by anons should be taken into account, because they represent the impressions of random readers, rather than hardcore editors. TFA is after all WP's showcase to the world, not a backslapping fest for admins and long-time contributors. In this case, perception is just as important as procedure.

Suggestions have been made to ameliorate the system, including a complete ban on articles with a commercial subject. As Gary King points out, such a measure would be excessive, and probably not even fully solve the problem. I believe a solution can be found that is far less dramatic, and builds on existing policy rather than radical innovations.

One of the core policies of Wikipedia is Wikipedia:Verifiability, or for this purpose, more specifically Wikipedia:Reliable sources. We operate with a hierarchy of sources, at the top of which are peer-reviewed journals, books from reliable publishing houses, and widely circulated newsmagazines or broadsheet newspapers like Newsweek or The Daily Telegraph. Closer to the bottom of that hierarchy are publications like Vintage Bluegrass Banjo Aficionado Monthly. The reason why these publications are undesirable are at least twofold:

1. It is unlikely that anyone but the article's author will have access to them, so it is difficult for the community to assess their reliability
2. These publications often stem from small, close-knit communities where everybody knows and does business with each other, and as such run into trouble with Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.

Now, if these are the only sources you can find, then fine – write the best article you can, but does the article really need to go on the Main Page? We have plenty to take from, so what’s the urge? The demands of WP:RS should always be upheld, but much more forcefully when dealing with TFA. This strict standard should apply to all subjects, but particularly articles dealing with commercial, religious or political topics, that can easily be perceived as promotional. I don't think that is too much to ask. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 15:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What's the proposal here, and what does it have to do with TFA? I can't discern the proposal that relates to TFA. Are you saying either Emerson or Elderly didn't use reliable sources? Take that up at FAC or FAR. Are you saying we need a separate review of sources prior to mainpage appearance? Reviewers across all content review processes (not just FAC and FAR) are short; if there's a concern about sources, engage FAC which is where this is dealt with. As far as I can tell, whatever this proposal might be, it seems to be mixing up FAC and TFA. FA standards are upheld at FAC and FAR, not TFA. And we still have no answer to why the same people who are decrying the results of a consensus-driven, community-wide process at FAC now want to extend the same consensus they decry to the mainpage choice, here at TFA/R. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don’t see the point of this overly aggressive response, and recourse to formalism and Wikilawyering. I know the difference between FAC and TFA, but currently more than two FAs are created a day, so there’s plenty to take from. Is it really too much to ask of those who select the TFAs that they apply some stricter standards? Or is it ok with you that Wikipedia’s reputation is tarnished in this way on a regular basis? I was hoping such an appeal could lead to a constructive debate, but when you immediately go in the trenches with a "we followed the rules, we did nothing wrong"-attitude, that becomes hard. The personal attacks are also unnecessary, is it really relevant how I or anyone else choose to apply our efforts here on Wikipedia? Cannot the suggestion be addressed on its own merits? Perhaps it is necessary that the TFA is chosen by editors and not the community, but in that case at least those editors have to be responsive to community concerns, not just jump at the throat of anyone who disagrees with them. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 16:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Lampman, it is not my intent to be "aggressive": I simply fail to understand your proposal. No article should use non-reliable sources, featured articles should be well sourced, this is a FAC/FAR issue that is unrelated to TFA. If an article has poor sourcing, it shouldn't be featured. It is not the function of TFA to review articles anew; for that, we already have two processes, FAC and FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess what I'm suggesting is another level of review, though an informal one. Under the current system that review has to be undertaken by the FA admins. Perhaps a reform of the whole system is needed, but I just don't think that's necessary to solve the immediate problem. My concern is that even though editors – particularly those involved in the FA process – understand what an FA entails, regular readers don't, and that's why extra caution is needed with TFAs. Even though an article adheres to all the formal demands for an FA, it can still give a poor impression outwards. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 17:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Disagreements make the community stronger. It happens that some people disagree with a community decision, think that it has been rushed or whatever, it doesn't mean that the process is flawed (for example, we have WP:DRV for deletions) See my response at ANI for more details. Cenarium (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Here are some relevant discussions: 1, 2. Wrad proposed that the community chooses Today's featured articles. A proposition for TFA is made on a page, where the community, in a classic community debate, decides if the featured article should be featured on the Main Page for a certain day. Then, after a reasonable period of time (two weeks ?), the discussion is closed by a member of a designed group, say, as featured or not featured based on consensus. Cenarium (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• "A proposition for TFA is made on a page, where the community, in a classic community debate, decides if the featured article should be featured on the Main Page for a certain day." This is exactly how the requests page currently works. BuddingJournalist 16:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Not at all, read the opening paragraph of Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. Cenarium (talk) 16:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• So, Cenarium's proposal is that we'll drain more reviewers from the content review pages where standards are upheld (e.g.; FAC and FAR) and where we always need more reviewers, by inititiating yet another review process at TFA/R, that will again be subject to chaos and disagreement from those who haven't engaged the process and don't understand the constaints and variables in mainpage scheduling. In the meantime, all of the people concerned about the standards of what appears on the mainpage could be better spending their time in reviewing articles at peer review, GAN, FAC and FAR, to help assure that articles that reach TFA/R are at standard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• "Even ill-informed comments by anons should be taken into account, because they represent the impressions of random readers, rather than hardcore editors" you are so correct on this one. The original reason I picked up on the Eldery article was from simply browsing the main page. If it struck me, and a lot of other people, that it read like an advert from a brief glimpse, then it should have raised immediate warning bells and not been brushed off by involved admins saying 'well it went through the FA process fine'. After all those of us with no connection to the article or the FA process were really the only objective source of opinion on the fact that something felt wrong. If it 'went through the FA process fine' and still raised so many complaints then it is justifiable to question how good the FA process is too. Mfield (talk) 16:52, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Of note, almost every complaint about the article came from people who have never engaged FAC, FAR or TFA, and almost no complaints came from people who have. Engage and understand the processes, policies and guidelines; object to articles at FAC if you feel they don't meet featured standards. This is a very separate matter from TFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• It doesn't matter that people didn't complain whilst the article was at FAC. It also doesn't matter if someone complaining never even knew of the existance of FAC, FAR or TFA. Not everyone has 16 hours a day to devote to every aspect of a communal process. Once it's on the front page its way past the point of being just relevant to FAC, it's become a representation of everyones communal efforts in this project. If it got through and people complain about it there has to be some acceptance that there may be something wrong and a willingness to address it. Burying heads in the sand and blindly defending the process when it clearly failed in this case is an insult to the intelligence of everyone involved and everyone who read the article once and felt it was biased. Mfield (talk) 17:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Burying heads in the sand and blindly defending the process ... That's not the case here, Mfield. I'm pointing out to you that, if you don't like what's appearing on the main page, please start engaging the process and reviewing articles at FAC and FAR. (We welcome more reviewers, more scrutiny, any help we can get at FAC and FAR; pls reference out attempts at many Dispatches, like this one.) That's where these issues are addressed. Creating a parallel process at TFA/R will drain resources, when we're already short of revieweres across all content review processes. I am not defending the process: I'm telling you we already have a process, and you only need to engage it. (I also disagree that it failed, but I doubt there's much chance that message will be heard now, and we have to take longer term steps to help the community understand notability of product and company articles.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• I also agree with this assessment, SandyGeorgia, you seem to take off criticism labeling it as "bad faith attacks on hard working Wikipedians", I've been particularly shocked by your comments at Raul's talk page. Cenarium (talk) 17:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Are you disagreeing that there were some pretty serious bad faith attacks made on the talk page yesterday ? I certainly hope not. Are you disagreeing that there have been volumes written on this matter by editors who haven't engaged or understood the processes they're commenting on? I fail to find the shocking aspects of this commentary. And I'm still waiting for an answer to why people who decry that a process failed want to create yet another, parallel process, with duplication of effort and purpose. Can anyone answer that? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Again, no, no, but you cannot reduce criticism to unfounded bad faith accusations on hard working Wikipedians. Bigtimepeace tries to tell you that on Raul's talk page. Why changing the process ? Because we think that the new process is better than the old one. This will involve the community at a larger scale, not only the typical FA reviewer like you call them. Cenarium (talk) 17:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Where on earth are these new community people going to come from? If we can't convince them to help review articles at FAC, then I think it unlikely that they'll suddenly decide to review articles post-FAC. If these same community people participated at FAC then the end result might be better articles, without adding an unnecessary step to the process. Karanacs (talk) 19:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• FACs and FARs are quite impressive and, frankly, I can understand why people avoid them. I'm not even mentioning the system of points and the 5 articles rule for TFA/R. Add to this the fact that all FA processes are monitored by a very small number of people, this is very bureaucratic. And WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY is one of our most fundamental policy, which means that it is widely accepted and respected among our editors. Don't get me wrong, I try to find an explanation on why reviewers are lacking, and why more generally the FA area is relatively deserted by the community. I'm not making judgment calls or whatever on the job you accomplish, the community is grateful for this. Wikipedia is built on community consensus, though there are exceptions making sense like WP:ARBCOM or WP:RFCU. FAC is consensus-driven and community-wide, and we have FAR(C) when the FA status of an article is challenged. Fine, no objection to the FA process, except that I think that more people should be allowed to close FACs and FARs. This may need to be discussed. Now the TFA process, the Main Page definitely attracts a lot of users, and I'm pretty sure tat a revamp of TFA as proposed above will be successful, and potentially drive people to FAC and FAR. I'll give a summary of advantages soon. Cenarium (talk) 21:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that adding an extra layer of review at TFA only increases the bureaucracy. It may be that you are suggesting that all articles for the main page should be chosen by the community: at present, Raul chooses most of them, advised by the discussion at TFA/R. But again, then, what you are suggesting is more bureaucracy. I have no problem with that in principle, but it would be good for you to recognize the fact (and its implications).

Again, I think the easiest solution would be some kind of edict that there should be no commercial organizations on the main page. (Plus whatever other restrictions the community felt: I've noted the informal "no porn stars" and "no bad language" rules.) I'm pretty neutral on that. But it would be a non-bureaucratic solution to the problem that you perceive. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Who is proposing a TFA review process? Have you even read the proposal. It isn't a review process. We won't be reviewing articles, just choosing the best ones for the main page. It's not like FAC where you have a strict set of criteria or anything at all. Wrad (talk) 22:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Wrad, that is a review process. Again, it may be of a different kind and less time-consuming than (say) GAN, FAR, FAC, FAR, and PR, but it is a review process. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• I agree, there is indeed a confusion between FA processes in some comments, but it doesn't change the fact that some editors, even profoundly involved in FAs, think that the TFA process should be changed. As for this article, some valid points have been raised, but it's past, really. Cenarium (talk) 17:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• (e.c.)This FA is an exception, I don't think that the FAC process is a problem, as I explained above, the FAR process can take care of "problematic" FAs. However, the TFA process should be renewed as suggested above. Cenarium (talk) 17:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

In regard to some earlier comments: A community TFA process will absolutely NOT drain FAC reviewers. Why? Because TFAs are already FAs. Choosing a TFA is not about copyediting or reviewing or rewriting an article, it is about deciding which of a set of articles that are already good should be on the front page. It is not a time-consuming process. Also, please stop calling the TFA proposal a "review" process. That is misleading. It is a community process, but actual article reviewing may or may not occur. That's up to the individual. Wrad (talk) 21:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Wrad, I'm afraid I simply don't understand what you're saying here. It seems to me that the following points have been made:

• First, that this particular article was not up to scratch for an FA.

  If so, then whatever problem there may be should definitely be sorted out at WP:FAC. Adding an extra layer of review for FAs that go to the main page is a drain of resources, and soon unsustainable.

• Second, that this particular article was unsuitable for the main page.

  I have no problem in principle with suggestions to exclude certain types of articles (in this case, articles about companies or commercial organizations) from the main page. Raul has already said that Jenna Jameson is de facto excluded from the main page. So that would make commercial organizations plus porn stars. I had once inferred that 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) is also informally excluded. That would make commercial organizations plus porn stars plus articles with "bad language" in the title. So let's have some debate about which types of article are or are not suitable for the main page.

• Third, there's recently been the suggestion that this particular article covers a non-notable subject.

  In that case, it would seem that WP:AFD is not doing its job. Either that, or notability could become a criterion for FA status.

I think attention to process is important in this case, to ensure that yesterday's fiasco is not repeated in the future. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, you don't understand what I'm saying at all. I'm trying to say in no uncertain terms that the TFA proposal is not a review process. It is merely a choosing process and is not time consuming at all. Wrad (talk) 21:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

If you're not sure what I mean by "the TFA proposal". Then please read all of my comments in this section. I am not talking about Elderly Instruments in this thread at all, but the TFA process as a whole. Wrad (talk) 21:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, that goes to my second point: whether or not certain topics are suited for the mainpage. TFA is indeed a review process, albeit perhaps a less time-consuming one than others, in so far as it reviews proposals for the main page. It would seem easier and less bureaucratic, however, (albeit more bureaucratic than the current process) simply to set some kind of guideline about what kinds of article should or should not appear on the main page.

But as soon as quality is at issue, then TFA is starting to duplicate the functions of other review processes. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

That would be great, JB, if commercial articles and porn were the only problem, but they aren't. The TFA nomination process is very confusing, frustrating, and bureaucratic as it is, and this would greatly simplify it. The TFA proposal didn't spring up just because of this silly Instruments thing, it has been brewing for a long time. If you don't think the TFA process is bureaucratic now, then you aren't as familiar with it as you think you are. Wrad (talk) 22:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, as I see it, the TFA process is a hodgepodge: there's a place for community input (which I likewise find confusing, frustrating, and so on); and then Raul makes the final decision, in most cases the only decision. You're proposing replacing this emphasis on one individual with a fully-fledged community review process. I have no problem with that a priori, but it'd be good to be straight about what's being proposed. It is another review process. It is more bureaucracy. It substituted a bureaucratic process for the decisions of an individual (advised, at present, by the community). --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no complication in the TFA process; Raul manages it fine, even if you and a couple of editors want it handled differently, and every system anyone comes up with to allow community input is gamed by the participants to make it look like a mess. The problem on this thread is that Jbmurray, Karanacs and I are reading and responding to this thread, while Wrad is referring to an entirely different issue, unrelated. This thread proposes additional content review, ignoring that that review occurs at FAC and FAR, and ignoring that all featured articles should conform to strict sourcing standards. Adding another content review step here would be duplication of effort, and editors concerned about stricter sourcing standards should be over at FAC opposing articles with marginal sources (which was not the case for Elderly Instruments by the way). Wrad, if you would try to read the proposal here and respond to it, rather than your proposal, we might all get on the same page. Which is: if you think FAs need stricter sources, get over to FAC and oppose those that don't. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

(after countless edit conflicts too) A general debate on what kind of articles should appear on the MP is unlikely to change things in the future. But a choosing process will take care of any kind of objections in a consensus-driven manner. But as I said at ANI, "If the appearance of a FA on the main page requires a community debate, then it's likely that people supporting the article will improve it in order to diminish the arguments of the opposers. This kind of things happen countless times in AFDs.". Whether it will drive people to FAR or FAC, I'm not certain in all honesty. This is not a review, and the bureaucratic side of points etc will be replaced by community debates. To reduce bureaucracy and increase openness, I think that much more users should be allowed to close. Cenarium (talk) 22:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary section break

OK, I may be repeating myself (see my points above), but for clarity, in response to Wrad and echoing to some extent SandyG... It would be good to break down what the problems are perceived to be.

• If the problems have to do with quality (as was the concern on this thread; see the title, "stricter standards"), then short of adding a new quality control layer, these are problems to be dealt with at FAC or FAR.
• If the problems have to do with selection, then that's an issue for TFA.
• If they have to do with notability (as per the latest on the Talk:Elderly Instruments), then that's a matter for AFD, or perhaps including notability as a criterion at FAC and FAR.

Of course, selection could be made an issue at FAC and FAR, too. But my understanding is that in essence (with some exceptions, decided upon by Raul), passing an article at FAC means that it is suitable for the main page. It is true that another option would be to say that articles about commercial organizations can never become featured. Moreover...

• Almost everyone who is criticizing the choice of Elderly Instruments for the main page is seeking more process, more bureaucracy, by means of community debate or whatever. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be good to be clear about that.

Once the issues are clear, then they can be debated clearly. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I never really engaged in the question of whether the TFA selection should be a community process or not. I respect those who think it should be, but I've tried to suggest improvements to the system as it is, rather than making structural changes. Furthermore, let's be absolutely clear that this is a debate about TFA selection, not about the FAC process. Changing the FAC rules or process wouldn't really solve the problem at hand, unless someone decides to go through every single FA that hasn't been featured yet.

What I'm suggesting is simply stricter criteria for certain types of TFAs, enforced by the FA admin. I can't see why Jenna Jameson – who's a lovely girl, I'm sure – should be the only person or subject in the world excluded from the Main Page. Similar judgement can also be applied to other articles, and I've tried to outline some guidelines above. My suggestion was meant as a milder version of banning all commercial topics, by rather submitting these to stricter scrutiny. BAE Systems was never called an advertisement, but then again that one was based on BBC and other reputable sources. To me Elderly Instruments' failure was marginal sources; does that show flaws in FA rules and process? Perhaps. Should it have been stopped before entering the Main Page? Certainly. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 01:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Which types of FAs? Again, I think you're confusing issues of quality with issues of selection. If the FAC process is not rigorous enough, and has allowed poorly-sourced articles through, then it needs to be fixed. If an article was passed with marginal sources, it should have been stopped there. On the other hand, if there are certain types of article (articles about commercial enterprises, or articles about commercial entrprises under a certain size, or whatever) that should not generally be on the main page, then that needs to be decided clearly and openly. Mixing up the issues, however, really doesn't help. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I don’t think I’m confusing the issues, but this is not the place to debate changes to the FAC process, and neither would that solve the problem, without a systematic review of hundreds of FAs. All I’m saying is that banning all articles on commercial enterprises is too extreme, so as a compromise I suggest submitting these to stricter scrutiny in the TFA selection. As such this is about both quality and selection, yes, but only in the sense of interpreting WP:RS more rigorously when dealing with corporate TFAs. That way BAE Systems would get through, Elderly Instruments would not. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 03:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

FA standards are FAC and FAR matters. The proposed TFA process is aimed to select an article for the Main Page, it will requires community debates and closes (is this bureaucracy ?), but it will also add transparency, and most importantly, the community will make the choice. This is only about selection, but it will certainly make supporters of the article improve it, and rejoin with the spirit Wikipedia:Article_development#Featured_article. And about notability, there is a difference between WP:N, the notability for inclusion on Wikipedia (which is covered by AFD), and the notability expected for a TFA, which has nothing to do with AFD. Cenarium (talk) 22:39, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh. Community debates and closes sure are bureaucracy! Again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but those proposing these solutions should be clear about them. Moreover, in the same line, such debates and closes will suck up more time and effort from editors. Again, nothing necessarily wrong with that, but let's be clear. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the incremental changes I would propose to the second of the above problems (selection) would be:

• A discussion as to whether or not there are certain types of article that should not go on the main page.

  My initial position here, for what it's worth, is that any FA should be worthy of the main page. I don't see why Jenna Jameson can't go on the main page, for instance: it is not pornographic; it is about porn, however, which is an important cultural phenomenon. But let's have this debate, if not once and for all then once and for the time being, about whether articles about businesses, porn stars, etc., should or should not go on the main page.

• I see no reason why there should be a limit of only five articles at WP:TFAR at any one time. Increasing the number immediately increases the amount of community involvement in the process.

These are minimal suggestions, and neither increases bureaucracy or adds an extra layer of process. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• And for the record, I'm strongly opposed to anything more than five articles on the requests page at a time, as the community has demonstrated time and time again that any system put in place to allow community input to mainpage scheduling will 1) game the system, 2) fill up immediately, leaving no leeway for the major factors that Raul has to consider in mainpage scheduling, and 3) reduce mainpage diversity by mainpage featuring of over-represented categories at the expense of diversity (let's have the Simpsons every day). Raul has a job to do, the mainpage needs to be stable, he has allowed a process for some input from the community, but opening up the mainpage TFA entirely to community consensus is a pathway to the same kind of problems we just saw, with people not even understanding the FAC process. Editors participating in this discussion, some who haven't yet even become familiar with FAC, FAR, and notability and who decry that consensus isn't working at FAC, want to extend same to the mainpage, which will result in pandemonium. Perhaps if more of them would actually review articles, they'd understand the issues of FA promotion and mainpage scheduling better. Several issues have been conflated in this discussion (and while we're having it, one featured article is being taken apart by editors who don't even have the sources, and possibly, no one is over reviewing articles at FAC to make sure they meet standards, and we just lost one of our best reviewers). Backwards steps all 'round here :-)) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

  FWIW, five does seem a rather small number, and perhaps unnecessarily restrictive. I wander over to WP:TFAR fairly often, and usually wander back, fairly frustrated. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict, this is a reply to JBs comment above) I agree with your first point and its always been my opinion that any FA should be able to get to the mainpage regardless of content since trying to appease sensitivities is next to imposible with objections raging from Mohammed to Sex.. Better to displease everybody than to be selective...

Regarding your second point, that opinion is shared by alot of people and Wrad tried to implement it but Raul was not interested so it dindt happen (I agree with the proposal too for whats its worth)

I also agree with most of what Wrad says, a community decision process might add some more bureacracy but atleast it should reduced the numbers of complaints and add an extra level of legitimacy. If we trust anonymous usuers to write articles on advanced physics, I think we can trust them (us) to pick the TFAs.. Acer (talk) 23:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What the community expects is more transparency and involvement. Look at the instructions at the beginning of WP:TFA/R, they are almost frightening, this is obscure bureaucracy. Wikipedians are used to community debates, and I don't consider them as bureaucracy. I'm not convinced that discussions on what should be included will be that useful, however a case by case analysis will be really fruitful I think. Cenarium (talk) 23:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

You may not consider community debates to be bureaucratic, but they absolutely are.  :) In general, bureacracy (if done well, at least) does improve transparency. In fact, there's nothing particularly obscure about the instructions at WP:TFA/R, though they are indeed fairly restrictive. What's obscure (for good or for ill) is what those instructions do not cover (and this seems to be the source of some of the complaints): i.e. how Raul chooses articles that have not been nominated there. But bureaucracy does have its various downsides, of course. Again, a bit of clarity would come in handy. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The TFAs which have led to complaints by a considerable part of our community and readers I could find are ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Ernest Emerson and Elderly Instruments. All of them have been criticized for their insufficient notability (note that none of them have articles in other languages by the way). Though it is clear that they meet our criteria for featured status (and I am sure that the sourcing and POV problems of Elderly Instruments will be settled), it seems that more is expected for a today's featured article than a simple FA status. The choice should be left to the community, not only to the so called FA community and its director. Cenarium (talk) 02:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

While I disagree with the "Considerable part of the community" statement; I agree with having the article in more than one language as part of the "Main Page Criteria". Actually it's about the most sensible thing I've heard come out of this discussion. Apart from having the chronic complainers get more active in FAC/FAR, etc. --Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 14:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The "chronic complainers" complain about TFAs, not FAC or FAR. FA is a quality status, what we say is that TFA requires more. After all, Raul654 has also expressed that he wouldn't feature Jenna Jameson on the Main Page. What I say is that it should be the decision of the Wikipedia community. Cenarium (talk) 16:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, notability is (at least at present) a matter for AFD. If you would like to propose that it should become a matter for FAC, then I think you should be clear about that. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Countless of factors may be taken into consideration, it's why a case by case analysis by the entire community should be done. As I said above, there are several levels of notability, these articles are certainly notable enough to be included on Wikipedia (this is the notability pertaining to AFD, WP:N). This minimal notability is, of course, needed for a FA (otherwise, no article...), but no further notability is required for a FA, which is perfectly fine I must say. I have no problem with the FA status of, say, Development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but I wouldn't be happy to see it on the Main Page and preferred to see, say, Introduction to general relativity (treat me of naysayer if you like, but I have right to my opinions, they should be respected as such, and those of innocent readers too, not all the complaints of annons or newbies are made in "bad faith"). Indeed, the question is : are they notable enough to be featured on the Main Page ? Cenarium (talk) 03:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a somewhat pragmatic approach, and might not satisfy the strict formalists, but I would like to point out that my suggestion of stricter interpretation of WP:RS for TFA in reality would go far towards also solving problems with notability. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 03:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

A community discussion on the promotion of a featured article on the main Page is likely to involve reliable sources too, and any other kind of opposition. They will be valued by discussion and community consensus will decide. Cenarium (talk) 03:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

All articles must use reliable sources, not just FAs, and reviewing for WP:V is already part of WP:FAC; there is no need for duplication of process, nor has a problem with the sourcing of Elderly Instruments been demonstrated. We have here a straightforward failure of understanding about notability. Notable topics deserve articles; non-notable articles are dealt with via WP:AFD. Articles that meet the criteria can be featured; the process for this is at WP:FAC. Any article that is featured deserves to be on the main page, particularly since diversity encourages more editors to write more similar articles, and there's no reason not to have a variety of articles on Wiki. The only breakdown in the processes already in place was a failure of editors uninvolved in any of these processes to understand notability: a pointy editor would put the article up at AfD to show how quickly it would be kept. The proposed solution is that we write a Dispatch to deal with this confusion about notability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:00, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Certainly all articles should have reliable sources in theory, but we all know this is not the case. Just because an article wasn't deleted doesn't mean it has reliable sources. Similarly, just because it was featured doesn't mean it really is (or currently is) featured-quality. I think it is not unreasonable to play around with the idea of stricter review of TFA candidates. In the case of Elderly Instruments, there were a lot of comments on the discussion page critical of the sources. You may see all the criticism as wrong, but its existence seems to show that there is a problem with the article of some sort. If I understand, you are suggesting that these editors were at fault for not knowing proper wikipedia notability and verifiability policies. But I interpret this as putting existing policies before consensus. If we have this many people complaining about the same thing, either the policies are not being followed or the policies are wrong. My basic point is that I don't see how your argument (as I see it) fully respects the tenet of consensus. I have been reading many of your recent comments spurred by the recent TFA problem, and I am really sensing from you a desire to protect the work of wikipedia "insiders" from "uninvolved" contributors. Perhaps you could elaborate and clarify for me what outcome you are seeking from the discussions about TFA reform . Thanks Dwr12 (talk) 09:45, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Second summary, break

To sum up the debate so far, there seem to be general agreement that some sort of reform is needed to avoid the situation we had on Wednesday. There is, however, different ideas about what to do:

• Structural changes:

1. Change the FAC/FAR criteria
2. Make the TFA selection a community process
3. Give the FA admin clearer guidelines for TFA selection

The FAC/FAR process is not a matter for debate here, and I think much can be achieved by changing the TFA selection process. I am personally in favour of a more open and democratic TFA system, but I believe changes can also be made within the current system, as long as that system is responsive to community requests.

• Changes in guidelines:

1. Ban all articles on commercial subjects from TFA
2. Apply a stricter reading of WP:RS on TFAs that might appear promotional

Personally I think the first suggestion is too radical, and at the same time insufficient. It would affect entirely unproblematic articles like BAE Systems. And where do we draw the line? Video games? Musical artists? Films? Furthermore, non-commercial articles can also appear as promotions for their subjects, such as articles on lesser political figures, or religious organisations. The second approach would deal with all of these issues.

I did not initially mention notability, as I believe that is a matter for AfD, and should not be an additional issue for FAC or TFA. I have, however, noticed how this tends to confuse the casual reader, who generally seems to think the TFA should be a subject of particular importance. The measure I’m suggesting would - as a side effect - undoubtedly raise the notability of TFAs, without actually changing the requirements on this point. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 15:20, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

• To sum up the debate so far, there seem to be general agreement that some sort of reform is needed to avoid the situation we had on Wednesday. No, there isn't. You're looking at one page, where a very small group of editors have contributed, and the sentiments expressed elsewhere are quite different or people aren't even worried about the issues perceived by this small group. In fact, no one yet has given a credible reason for the attacks on this article's reliability or notability. What is needed is a means of helping some of our editors better understand notability, and a discussion of why some readers think only large companies can be notable or be on the main page. Throughout this discussion, what stands out most is the incredible disencentive for any editor to want to produce featured content in the future. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea how you can say this. On the talk page, there are a lot of good reasons why the types of sources and their verifiability are not as good as we would like them to be. Dwr12 (talk) 09:59, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

• Change the FAC/FAR criteria. The FAC/FAR criteria (WP:WIAFA) are not going to deviate from Wiki policies and guidelines like WP:V and WP:NN. Right now they reflect policy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

• Ban all articles on commercial subjects from TFA. OK, more than half of our featured articles would no longer be eligible to be on the mainpage, and someone can find a way to define just about anything as commercial. Certainly, that would be the end to books, film, companies, video games, engineering and technology products, and a whole host more. Again, another disencentive to editors to write featured content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

• Apply a stricter reading of WP:RS on TFAs that might appear promotional. Another strawman; at FAC, the strictest interpretation of policy is and should be applied already. There are not two different levels of FAs; articles either meet FA criteria or they don't (IMO, Elderly Instruments did, but it fell prey to a feeding frenzy of people who don't understand WP:ADVERT or WP:NN). If they don't, take them to WP:FAR, or get more active at WP:FAC to assure these issues are reviewed for. When I was one of the most active reviewers at FAC, I was typically the only reviewer checking sources. I haven't seen any indication that any of the people over here asking for change are over there reviewing articles, and since one of our most thorough reviewers is now gone from the building after this debacle, there's a gap to be filled. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

FAC and FAR are kind of like "smoke-filled rooms" to borrow a political phrase. Saying "too bad, they should have been more involved in the bureaucracy" is surely not a way to go about this. Many people would love to get their input in, but can't realistically devote hours to being involved in these venues. I thought consensus can be re/established whenever and wherever. There is no basis for people having to express their concerns only at the review proceedings or forever hold their peace. Dwr12 (talk) 09:59, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

• The measure I’m suggesting would ... Again, I'm still unable to decipher what the suggestion is, I only see overlap with and misunderstanding of existing policies, processes and pages, but will put out the reminder one more time. While people are over here trying to create duplicate processes to do what FAC already does, I'm not seeing any of these people over at FAC actually engaging the criteria that are already in place to cover these concerns, and we're one reviewer short at FAC. My responses are not intended to sound "aggressive" (as was claimed elsewhere): it is just incredibly sad to see a good writer and reviewer chased off, leaving a big gap, while many of the people engaged in this discussion don't appear willing or able to fill that gap. I know many of you are trying to help now that the feeding frenzy has subsided; please consider that the best way to help is to actually review articles at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that Wrads and the Dukes proposal for a revamped TFA selection process involving direct community input, which I agree to, got mixed here with a bunch of comments related to FA that are a separate issue altoguether, this has led to alot of confusion in this discussion. The propoal for allowing the comunity to chose TFA has nothing to do with notability concerns that have benn raised here nor is it related to the Elderly Instruments "incident". Acer (talk) 17:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Sandy I don't think its helpful to say that Elderly Instruments fell prey to a feeding frenzy of people who don't understand WP:ADVERT or WP:NN, while alot of comments left on the talk page were hurtful and not very usefull, there were real issues with the article and some editors engaged honestly to solve them, including user:Bigtimepeace and user:Mfield, Laser Brain himself admitted as much. While I certanly believe that it was not your intention, generalising comments like the one you made can cause ressentment among the people who actually tried to improve the article Acer (talk) 17:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

FAs are already high quality articles, TFA is a matter of selection, and we advocate that the Wikipedia community should make this selection. The FA criteria are not in cause here, and we have a vast choice of FAs for the Main Page. Don't forget that our readers are not necessarily aware of our guidelines like WP:N or WP:ADVERT. Further notability may be a factor in the debate over the appearance of a FA, stricter requirements for sources too. For example, for this particular FA, concerns over sources are serious, and as you can see, even users familiar with the FA processes agree. I don't think that the FA criteria should be changed, more reviewers appear to be needed. But, if I may, how do you think you can attract more users to review FAs ? And helping at FAC is a good thing, but this is very different from TFA. Cenarium (talk) 17:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

If I knew what else I could do to attract more reviewers across all content review processes (this is a problem at WP:PR, WP:GAN, WP:FAC and WP:FAR), I'd be doing it. We've set up shop and written Dispatch articles for the Signpost (see {{FCDW}}), I've given barnstars and awards to top reviewers, we've discussed setting up a competition for choosing an FA of the month (that went nowhere), and I've generally badgered people on their talk pages as well, and gone out and recruited editors who seem to have good reviewing skills. I have put weeks and months into trying to strengthen our review processes, only to possibly lose a good and productive reviewer to this debacle. A peer review volunteer list was established, and we wrote a Dispatch about how to achieve a good PR. We wrote a Dispatch about FAC and FAR reviewers. We wrote a Dispatch about editors who had made great saves at FAR. I've done everything I know of to do to encourage and reward reviewers, because it is hard and thankless work. The simple fact is, we're short reviewers throughout Wiki's content review processes, which is why the energy that has gone into this page, and the possible loss of a busy and thorough FAC and FAR reviewer, has me seriously bummed out. This episode has 1) provided a strong disencentive to editors who might write future featured content, 2) possibly cost us a good reviewer, and 3) drained a lot of time from others who might be reviewing articles while 4) playing with the notion of creating yet another process which will only leave us more short in the processes we already have. On the positive side, hopefully this will draw some attention to the shortages at our content review processes, although I've yet to see a new reviewer show up or any evidence of that happening. I feel this episode will only be a disencentive for featured article writers and reviewers, and we'll lose more than we'll gain. And I still fail to understand the logic in people wanting to expend energy on choosing the mainpage articles (which Raul handles just fine) rather than reviewing to assure that articles are up to snuff to begin with; it seems to me like a real cart before the horse issue is going on here. (And no, I don't at all agree that concerns over sources used at Elderly Instruments are serious, but I'm trying to stay out of that discussion now and move on to the bigger picture. I'm fairly convinced now that Elderly won't last long at the rate it's being deconstructed by editors who haven't even accessed the sources, so there's no point in looking back at that article; for the editor who wrote it, I imagine it's a heartache, and it will be hard to motivate future editors to want to write similar content, having seen what happened to that article. So, I guess we want only science and history on the mainpage and as featured articles from now on.) Cenarium, I hope you understand my comments aren't directed at you or any individual: it's the situation, and my concern that the proposals here will only further these kinds of problems by turning over the mainpage selection to editors who may or may not have fully engaged these processes and our policies and guidelines. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Even if we assume that nobody else understands the pocesses and guidelines, I don't really see what having to choose one article among a list of FAs (which are already supposed to conform to all rules) to be featured on the main page has to do with an understanding of policies... People will simply be choosing among articles that are already FAs, they don't need to understand the FA criteria (which is really not rocket science) in order to choose Acer (talk) 18:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Acer, but I've got to disagree there. This episode has evidenced the number of people who don't understand WP:V, WP:WIAFA, WP:ADVERT or WP:NN, and we shouldn't have people choosing TFAs who don't understand fundamental policies and guidelines and Wiki processes. That's why we have a director. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You didnt answer my main point, why do they need to understand policy to choose TFA? They'll be choosing from the pool of FAs Sandy, all those articles already conform (or are supposed to) to all those policies so there inst any room for an article that doesnt conform to get on the mainpage. If your concern is that some FAs will be effectively stoped from ever being TFA, a couple of simple rules can keep that from happening. Also, most of the prople (though certanly not the only ones) that gave harsh/hurtful criticism of Elderly Instruments were one time accounts or IPs, meaning that those people were wikipedia readers and not editors and short of banning IPs or new users from commenting there really isnt much that can be done to stop them from making hurtful comments on the talk pages of articles that they didnt like for whatever reason. Acer (talk) 18:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict, I concur with Acer) Some users said that the article was not notable for Wikipedia, which is wrong per WP:N, but these users were mainly anonymous users or newbies (even some SPAs emerged), they were not long standing members of the community. Some editors however, including administrators and other respected users, thought that this organization was not notable enough to be featured on the Main Page. This is very different. WP:ADVERT has been misused also, but some editors think that placing a small business article on the Main Page may appear to be advertising, which is, again, very different. Some editors, indeed, have shown a lack of knowledge in WP:WIAFA, but this is not the point, TFA is not FAC/FAR. Finally, for the sources, this is discussed by competent editors who are fully aware of WP:V. I understand that this is not personal, but some generalizations were quite unpleasant. I will elaborate on the proposal later. Cenarium (talk) 18:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Acer lost my response to multiple ecs, having a hard time getting in here. I thought the main point of this discussion was that editors who don't understand ADVERT, notability and other policies and guidelines would reject articles that they perceive as advertising, which is why we have a director who understands policy. (And thanks for the reminder that a lot of the bad-faith issues and nasty claims about the article came from IPs and one-time redlinks; that has been somewhat lost in the discussion with the mantra that the article had real problems. This has been a tempest in a teapot on this page and the article talk page only, and the article didn't even raise eyebrows in most places, and the reactoin on the mainpage talk page from knowledgeable editors was far more measured.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Well they can certanly try to stop articles from getting to the main page, but we can have mechanisms to stop that from happening (rotation of topics for instance) I dont share views that some FAs should be barred from the main page, and in fact, I'm more radical in this view than Raul since I beleive that even Miss Jenna should have her chance to shine.. The reason that I want the TFA selection process to be open is simply because this is a wiki, everything else we do (including selecting FAs) is a community process, so why cant this be too? I'm opposed to one person holding ultimate authority on principle.(with the additional advantage that people will not have somebody to point theur fingers to when something they have a problem with gets featured.) Honestly I dont beleive that oppeing up the process will lead to confusion, everything else on the site is collaborative and surprisingly enought it works! Acer (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

"I'm fairly convinced now that Elderly won't last long at the rate it's being deconstructed by editors who haven't even accessed the sources, so there's no point in looking back at that article". I am surprised that you think that article is now in such a worse state now than it was when it was allowed onto the front page. The claims now bear a much closer relation to the citations they were drawn from, there are more people with a clearer idea as to the actual trustworthiness of the references, and the language in general has been improved to the point that if it were to be put back up on the front page it would attract far less complaints. That is consensus editing, and if more of a measure of that had been applied to the article before it was put up there, then maybe this whole situation would not have developed. It can be improved more, it should be, that's the way this works. Do you expect one person to write an article and no one else to ever need to edit it? What happens when that person moves on, is no one else allowed to edit the article without being deemed worthy? It seems fairly obvious that the system failed in this case and the constructive thing to do is to try and fix it or at the least review the system to prevent it happening again. There's nothing personal about that which should lead to any accusations of over defensiveness, its just common sense. Mfield (talk) 18:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

No this isn't obvious to me at all. I saw an overreaction and a feeding frenzy, resulting in damage to the article before it could begin to be put back together. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Sandy that an admin-run TFA process is preferable, but that requires at least a certain measure of dialogue between those in charge and the community. All we've gotten here so far is "I'm not even interested in discussing your suggestion, now let's talk about something else." I have said repeatedly that my suggestion had nothing to do with FAC. All I'm saying is that with the current abundance of FAs, we're able to show greater discretion in selecting TFAs. Yet Sandy constantly brushes that possibility off with a mantra-like reference to current policy, and then repeatedly returns to FAC problems. I'm sure that's a valid issue, but shouldn't that be on the FAC talk page, or at least under a different thread? Is it so hard to admit that an article can pass the formal criteria of FAC, and still look bad on the Main Page? Other than Jenna Jameson? Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 18:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Shared custody

I've been loosely following the FA process debate for awhile, and could talk about the strengths and flaws in the system in some detail, but I know that the longer I make my post, the less likely that anyone's going to read it. So, to boil down to the core points: The process needs a change, because too much power is in the hands of too few people. However, precisely because those people (such as Raul and SandyGeorgia) get attacked so often, and because some of those attacks are inappropriate, I feel that they go into a "bunker" mentality, where they feel that they're the only ones who can really be trusted to make wise decisions on the behalf of the community. Therefore they circle the wagons, refuse to let go of any power, only let people into their "circle" who agree with them, and effectively plug their ears against the rest. But what they're missing, is that mixed in among the ranting from trolls, there is good faith criticism from good faith editors, and that a change really is needed.

It's tough to change a situation like this. For the most part, Raul and SandyGeorgia do a really good job. They shoulder a lot of responsbility, and are juggling a lot of conflicting demands, every day. They deserve respect for such an undertaking. However, they're also spread very thin, and the constant barrage on them would cause pretty much anyone to get a bit testy every so often. I do believe that they have the best interests of Wikipedia at heart. And they have reasonable concerns about what a new system would entail. It's true that if they just "let go" and we opened the gates wide and tried a new system, there would probably be some problems. BUT, would they really be devastating problems? Or look at this way: if every single major FA admin simply disappeared today, would Wikipedia crumple up and die? I don't think so. There might be a few bumps, but then the beauty of this collaborative community is that other people would pick up the slack, and the project would continue on. For example, look at how WP:DYKs are handled: it seems to move along pretty smoothly, we get a steady flow of DYK notes on the mainpage each day, changed every few hours, handled by multiple editors, and it's not a nightmare.  :)

For now, my recommendation is that we try for the best of both worlds. How about splitting custody of TFA? Like maybe let Raul make decisions on odd days, and let a community review process make decisions on even days. Or alternate weeks, or months, or say "every day that's a multiple of 5, will be a community-chosen TFA". I think that would reduce the frustration level, increase trust all around, and also give more "outsiders" some insight on the difficulty in choosing a nice balance of articles for our main page. --Elonka 18:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the situation. I have a lot of respect for the amount of work Raul and Sandy put into the project, but the hard-headedness anyone in disagreement is met with is really frustrating. I noticed how Sandy recently turned for support to User:Mike Searson on his talk page. Here are a couple of random flowers from the lovely bouquet that's Mike's recent posts: "most of them are still scarred from having their lunch money taken from them at school by a little girl in pigtails so they're just going to be bitter" "some overweight loser that used to be an admin."

In light of this, Sandy's lamentations over bad-faith posts seem a bit ingenious, and one is inclined to believe that he prefers to surround himself with yes-men, rather than serious contributors. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 19:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec reply to Elonka) This is where I should mention that ITN (In the news) is a community process like DYK, and it fell apart a few weeks ago, with the same image on the news for too many days to remember, so that Raul stepped in and changed it. They had a big fuss about it, accused Raul of abusing his powers, but it was a perfect example of how a community process stalled over consensus problems, and the mainpage ITN section suffered and grew stale, because they couldn't come up with a consensus. This is exactly what the concern is, and it does happen in those processes. There are also frequent posts to the administrators' noticeboards when someone forgets to update DYK. On the other hand, there has only been one instance of a TFA issue, and that was a day that Wiki suffered some sort of complete outage (can't remember the specifics, but Gimmetrow knows), so TFA has worked flawlessly for years without a single glitch (thank you, Raul), while DYK and ITN often have glitches. And, yes, I go into a funk mentality when a FAC reviewer or FA writer is run off, but that's not the process, it's just how I feel about people who contribute selflessly to the Project. I can deal when I'm criticized or attacked, but I get pretty bummed out when a good reviewer or writer is criticized and maligned as Laser has been. (That's a hefty strawman there, Lampman, can we stay on-topic here? Mike Searson went through something as bad as Laser did, and reliving that isn't going to address Elonka's proposal. Lampman, please stop and think for a moment how you would feel if you had researched and worked on an article for months, maybe even a year, jumped through all the hoops of multiple content review processes many times, and then were accused of having a financial interest when the article appeared on the mainpage. I might not write that post that Mike wrote, but it's not that hard to imagine how one feels after something like that.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with Elonka's points. A smooth passage is certainly a good idea. With regards to the treatment of the criticism, I was frustrated for sure. Saying that the talk page of Elderly Instruments is full of "crap" is not encouraging to improve the article. And being accused to have done nothing to prevent this or help to improve the article beforehand, while this is not possible since the choice of the article is not ours is quite disheartening (again, it's TFA, not FAC). Laser's response to criticism (justified or not) was very good by the way, but it's not about that. In response to Sandy, ITNs are necessarily difficult to handle, since we have to respond to the news in a timely manner. And DYKs are not a big deal. Cenarium (talk) 19:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

(Response to Sandy) It's not a strawman when you've directly solicited his support in the ongoing conflict. These are recent posts from Mike, not from September, you'd think the trauma had passed by now. I never accused Mike of taking money from anyone, I resent that kind of comments deeply, and I actually remember chastising those who made them. I do reserve the right to raise legitimate criticism though, that's the risk you run when you contribute here.

But I do agree with Elonka that it's madness that one man should be solely, and seemingly indefinitely, in charge of the most prominent piece of real estate on Wikipedia, indeed one of the most prominent on the internet. I suppose that's a remnant from Wikipedia's earlier days, but now I think the poor guy should get some rest. I refuse to believe there aren't plenty of admins ready to take over. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 19:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, let's be clear here, Lampman. Not all of the attacks on Laser came from IPs or single-post redlinks. You launched the first inappropriate attack on the choice of this article, accusing Raul of "enemy action". [1] And now you have a problem that I courtesy notified Mike Searson that his article had been mentioned, and asked him to help us write a Dispatch dealing with and clarifying these issues?[2] I don't know what you even mean by "solicit support"; yes, I want to write a Dispatch dealing with notability and mainpage selection. I'm getting the idea, from your comments here, that you must have been one of the editors who engaged this same discussion when Ernest Emerson was run on the mainpage, and if that's the case, this is starting to make more sense, and I see that perhaps describing the choice of the article as "enemy action" is a plain vanilla personal attack.[3] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, details here Sandy. With reference to Emerson and Elderly, I said that "Twice is coincidence", while "The third time it's enemy action". "Coincidence" can hardly be considered a personal attack of any flavour? And besides, I didn't say that, Goldfinger did. Lighten up! Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 20:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

oh, I have, now that I've realized that it was you who said some pretty off-base things about a lot of editors early on in this discussion, and that this is just a recycling an old issue you had with the Ernest Emerson article. I'm much relieved to see the bigger picture now and that the whole episode wasn't merely an attack on Laser, and am disinclined to further engage these plain vanilla assumptions of bad faith. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You’re damn right it’s got nothing to do with Laser. I believe he’s an excellent editor, as I’ve made clear several times on his talk page and elsewhere. This has to do with selection process, where Emerson and Elderly fall into the same pattern. This I’ve also made clear several times, so there’s no prize for discovering that. As for bad faith, I’m not sure where you have that from, my main concern here has been errors of judgement. The "disinclined to further engage"-comment falls into a pattern though. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 20:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent:) For what it's worth, I agree with Elonka that the process for choosing TFA could be opened up somewhat. I've already made the rather minimal (but not insignificant) proposal that the number of articles allowed at WP:TFAR at anyone time should be increased to ten. I could also imagine other ways in which the decision is opened up. (And as Wrad points out, there have been a series of slightly less minimal changes suggested at WT:TFAR, not least in this thread). And NB Raul himself has expressed some dissatisfaction with the current system. But realistically, any such discussion is going to have to happen with Raul, rather than without him; and at present his voice is rather notable by its absence. (He has commented on similar proposals here).

I've also said that I'm open to a debate about what kinds of articles should or should not be featured on the main page. I still think it's simpler all around if that is a debate that takes place at FAC, instead of created a two-tier FA system of FAs that can go on the main page versus FAs that can't. I should say that my general view is that any FA should be worthy to go on the main page; that includes Miss Jenna. But there was a time, as I understand it, when certain classes of articles were not considered viable for FA status; the GA process sprung up to recognize them instead. (See, in fact, this week's signpost.) The decision to change that could be revisited.

Finally, about the specific issues that have caused so much fuss here: I'm rather surprised that some seem to be suggesting that a small retailer such as Elderly Instruments is inappropriate, while a mega-corporation such as Microsoft is not. Should it not, if anything, be the other way around? If we're saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity, and that main page exposure comprises some kind of advertising, then heck, I'd rather see my local mom-and-pop store get a bit of exposure than add to Gates's billions. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:12, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

This is why a case by case analysis is needed, we shouldn't make general rules for TFAs. I don't think that it's realistic to think that the discussion can be bring to FAC, anyway, the selection problem will still remain (we have the choice between numerous articles). And I really think that any kind of article should be allowed to gain featured status, this is about quality only. However, the community (and our readers) doesn't seem to accept that any kind of featured article be on the Main Page, neither Raul. Cenarium (talk) 21:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Jbmurray that the topic itself should not be a factor in deciding TFAs. I do, however, think that we should tweak the WP:RS requirements a little bit further for TFAs. Further even than for FAs - why not, when we have the luxury to do it? Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 21:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this, I think, is not only that it adds bureaucracy (which, as I've implied above, is not necessarily a problem if it's done right), but more that it creates a two-tier system within the FA system: some articles are deemed worthy for the main page; others are not. That way lies confusion and complication. Again, better to ensure that all featured articles are worthy for the main page. If there's a sense that they aren't, then the answer is in the first place simply more participation at FAC.

And on this last point: the one item of absolutely unanimous consensus in this discussion is that we need more people to take part in the FAC and FAR processes. Look here and here for where contribution is most urgently needed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks jb, I like your clear and amicable presentation of the issues, would you like to be FA director? (just kidding) Anyway, I still think it’s worthwhile, because I believe there could be a difference between what we recognise as an FA within the community, and what we decide to expose the general public to. But I’ll try to find the time to look at some FACs though, cheers! Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 02:22, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

There are different views on the subject, it's why I don't think that a set of general rules should guide our choice (except maybe in terms of diversity), besides, I don't think that we'll agree on such a matter, at least not in a near future. I believe that a case by case analysis is the best solution, an article should be judged on its own merit. Cenarium (talk) 03:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I recommend that we continue with discussions towards the "Shared Custody" idea. What I was pondering, is that we set up a parallel process, which makes community recommendations for a TFA queue, about 30 days in advance, with other dates listed out for maybe a year. I liked the way that the Requests page worked last year,[4] where FA writers could request a specific date, well in advance. As a note, the first time I formed my "too much power in the hands of too few people" opinion was when Raul arbitrarily shut down that entire page, without discussion. I also very much dislike the current "only 5 a time" requests page, which I feel is extraordinarily condescending to FA writers as it requires too much "scrambling" and high-stress maneuvering to make a request. Anyway, as I understand it, TFAs right now, as decided by Raul, seem to only have a 3-4 day leadtime. So, we could set up a parallel page (Not sure what to call it, maybe TFA alternate?), and clearly banner at the top that it is not an official page, it is just a set of recommendations. Then Raul could refer to the page when he was making his own decisions, and use or not use the recommendations as he saw fit. Ideally if he didn't like a recommendation, he could say why, so that the process could be further improved. Then any article that was listed on the community's "suggestion" page that didn't get chosen, would be at the discretion of the primary editors there to choose which date they would most like in the future, or whether they just wanted to go back into the "any date available" queue. --Elonka 16:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent:) For what it's worth, I don't think that would do any harm. (I don't understand your final sentence, though.) You'd have to drum up support elsewhere, too. And NB Raul has commented on the previous state of the TFA/R page here:

As for everyone hating the limit, I'm aware they do. To be equally blunt, that's because they are too shortsighted to see what will happen with no limits. We once had a suggestion page once with no limits, and it was a disaster. It had upwards of 250 requests, nobody maintained it, and it was so large and unwieldy I tried never to look at it. In fact, now that I think about it, I'd be equally happy to go back to that old situation -- no limits on requests, and I get to ignore all of them.

Looking at the link you provided, I have a fair amount of sympathy for his view: it is rather chaotic! Which is not to say (as I've suggested) that the current limit of five could not be increased. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to make a comment concerning the discussion of the unofficial/secret ban list of FAs. Claiming that we still maintain a consistent view on inappropriate mainpage articles after Cannibal Holocaust became a TFA on April 18 2008 seems to me rather arbitrary. That article is about an explotation film with bloody mutilation, cannibalism, animal cruelty, gratuitous sex, extreme sexualized violence and exoticized racism. On top of that the article includes images like this. FA quality aside, can anyone seriously claim that Jenna Jameson is less appropriate as a TFA?

Peter ^Isotalo 11:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You think the community could do a better job at this? Right now - thanks to the community - we're having Troy McClure on the Main Page because it's 28 May, the day Phil Hartman was shot to death.
By his wife.
I hope I'm not the only one sickened by this. If this is what the community will do then I say leave it to Raul. Just give him some better rules to go by, cause right now he's stinking it up. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 00:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Looking through the history of the page, that nom had one oppose, one slight oppose, one neutral, and two supports. So consensus split or leaning towards oppose, and it was Raul that decided to feature the article, not the community. Noble Story (talk) 01:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

So Raul acted in spite of hesitant voting and some seriously weak arguments for featuring the article. Does that mean that Raul made a bad choice? Or is anyone disagreeing with Raul by definition always wrong because they're not calling the shots?

Peter ^Isotalo 06:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, but for clarification, this is the nomination before it was scheduled. Obviously, this is not a community choice, as Lampman said it was. I'll leave people to judge for themselves if Raul made the wrong choice.

Note, though, that the top of the page states "community endorsement [/non-endorsement] on this page does not mean the article will appear on the requested date." So Raul does have the authority to overrule the community. But the question is if he made the right choice in doing so in this case. Noble Story (talk) 10:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, exactly how many times should Raul overrule the community before we start discussing how to alter the process? I consider the choice of Cannibal Holocaust especially problematic since Raul has publically stated that he intends to keep certain article off the mainpage indefinitely. As far as I'm concerned, his definition of what should be considered inappropriate for the mainpage has been somewhat compromised by that choice. We should have guidelines for what we consider appropriate, or a more transparent selection process. Either way, I don't find it especially satisfying that Raul makes the occasional public statement about entertaining a ban list, only to follow it up by featuring a semi-porographic exploitation cannibal splatter flick.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think Cannibal Holocaust is an important film. In fact, it touches on a topic on which (in my day job) I'm actively working. Were it down to my personal preferences, I would far rather have this film featured and on the main page, than an article on a Simpsons character. But on the other hand, I recognize that on Wikipedia there's something for everyone. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the issue for that article is not if it is important. Maybe it is, but it shouldn't be on the main page. Exactly how can Wikipedia claim to have a core base of students and schools, when they feature a "semi-porographic exploitation cannibal splatter flick" on the front page? I think Raul definitely, definitely made the wrong choice there. Noble Story (talk) 02:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Two featured articles at once?

Would it be possible to do two featured articles on the main page at once? With Barack Obama now as the presumptive Dem nominee (and an FA!) and John McCain as the presumptive GOP nominee (and a current GA/former FA candidate), I think it'd be great if we could do a "double header" on Election Day. Since that's November 4, it gives us plenty of time to smooth out McCain's article and bring it up to FA status. Thoughts? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 07:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea to me. I recall a New York Times crossword doing something similar on Election Day in '92. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I met the professor who designed that puzzle.  :) More info on it here: Jeremiah Farrell. --Elonka 02:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Two FAs at once? If it's done well, it could be a nice idea. Cheers, Face 07:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

List of forbidden FAs?

"Raul654 maintains a very small, unofficial list of featured articles that he does not intend to have appear on the main page."
That makes me curious. What articles are on that list? Can I find it somewhere? Cheers, Face 07:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Jenna Jameson is the only one I would be hesistant to feature on the main page. Wikipedia (now a former FA) was another one because it would be too self aggrandizing. Raul654 (talk) 03:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is Cannibal Holocaust, a cannibal splatter flick full of gratuitous sex (mostly in the form rape), clean enough to go on mainpage but not a mainstream pornstar?

Peter ^Isotalo 07:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

My goal is to feature as many FAs as possible while not creating shit-storms. I did not expect Cannibal Holocaust to cause one (and I was right); I do expect putting Jenna on the main page would cause one. Raul654 (talk) 14:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

As a reviewer of the Jameson's article, and having watched (up to a certain moment of course) the professionalism of the editors of the article, I can't say that I share Raul's hesitations. Mainstream pornstars deserve their place in the project's front page! All articles treating their subject in a strictly encyclopedic and professional way deserve their place in Wikipedia's main page.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

If we're to keep porn and the likes off the mainpage, it should still be done a bit more consistently. I get the feeling that Cannibal Holocaust got away without any major criticism merely because most people didn't know what the hell it was.

Peter ^Isotalo 07:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I get the feeling that Cannibal Holocaust got away without any major criticism merely because most people didn't know what the hell it was. - this conclusion is almost certainly wrong. People didn't care about Cannibal holocaust because they are a lot less sensitive to violence than sex. That's just the way it is (There was a south park episode which hit on this point) Now, even assuming your conclusion is correct - and frankly, I doubt that it is - that is just fine by me. Some people got educated, whoever wrote that article got his day on the main page, and I didn't get any headaches. I call that a success. Raul654 (talk) 14:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Cannibal Holocaust is full with gratutious sex, most of it extremely violent and disturbing. I can't for the life of me imagine that we'd have moralists who would balk at Jenna Jameson and then go "oh, but at least they don't show penetration" and approve of CH as appropriate to, say, Christian school kids. Either we keep obviously obscene and offensive material off the mainpage altogether or we agree that we can show everything but the most raunchy (like Dirty Sanchez).

Peter ^Isotalo 05:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

If CH were as disturbing as you claim it is, then it would have generated negative feedback. It did not. Jenna Jamison will (and no, I'm not willing to prove this by testing it). Raul654 (talk) 19:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

CH is a pretty bloody disturbing topic unless you ignore all but the relevant facts, ei its contents. I'm not sure I'm willing to try putting Jenna on the mainpage either, but CH was still not kosher mainpage material by any reasonable standards of encyclopedic decorum. It was a pure gamble on your part and I found it highly cynical. Citing South Park parodies of American moralistic hypocrisy doesn't make it better. Just like Jenna, CH is not something many sensitive or moralistic people would want to read about, and that does seem like we're discussing here.

Peter ^Isotalo 05:39, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't want "***k the Millenium" on the front page. DrKiernan (talk) 14:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

"People didn't care about Cannibal holocaust because they are a lot less sensitive to violence than sex." I really try to understand this rationale, but I honestly fail to! Ther is no no way I can espouse it. First things first! Shouldn't we first form our own sense and criteria about what means "sensitivity"? What is "sensitivity" for us the Wikipedians, and then for the "others". Raul, objectively, what is worse for a child serfing in the net, to read an article spread with violence in terms of both content and images or an article about a pornstar with no offensive picture material, and, as far as I remember and now read quickly, a very careful vocabulary?! Therefore, the comparison and the outcome you describe (publishing a "violent" article, not publishing a "porn?" aricle) is nothing but a "success case"! I would say quite the opposite!

And the fact that "you didn't get any headaches" does not mean that you took the correct decision. You are chosen for this position in order to successfully handle "headaches"! For me, I repeat, the basic criterion is the strictly encyclopedic treatment of the article's topic. I wouldn't have any problem to see a pornstar article in the main page, if its topic is encyclpedically treated in a "professional" (you understand how I use the term) way, and if there is no offensive material (e.g. sexual intercourse pictures, bizarre descriptions of sexual scenes etc.). IMO the article you say that is in an "unofficial forbidden list" fulfils the above criteria, and there is no reason to be in any such "list".--Yannismarou (talk) 07:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I've been called "prudish" and "old-fashioned," but I see no valid reason why the Jenna Jameson article shouldn't be featured on the main page. Based on prior instances, I doubt that this would be any more controversial than a video game article, a Pokémon character article, or any of a multitude of articles on subjects regarded by some as not academic/intellectual enough simply because they pertain to popular culture (and I couldn't disagree more, of course).
I would say, Mark, that your "a lot less sensitive to violence than sex" argument is strongly influenced by American cultural bias. Go to the UK and try to broadcast a film containing topless women and ninjas swinging nunchucks, and see what gets censored.
But even if the Jenna Jameson article were to generate more controversy than usual, so what? Do we really want to send the message that we seek to avoid controversy (let alone because it would inconvenience our featured article director) and allow this to affect our (or his) editorial decisions? Do we really want to tell the contributors who brought the Jenna Jameson article up to featured status that their hard work was less valuable to the project than others' because some people disapprove of the article's subject? I hope that the answer to both questions is a resounding "no."
I realize that there are (and will continue to be) too many featured articles for all of them to appear on the main page, but knowing that this one has been blacklisted bothers me a great deal. —David Levy 09:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

You are but a few who wouldn't mind a porn star on the main page. What about the 14.5 million or so who visit the main page on a daily basis. I'm sure more than a handful would object, including myself, and their reasons for objection would far outweigh your reasonings. The damage to this encyclopedia's reputation would be irreversible. ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 11:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The reputation of the encyclopedia would be furhter reinforced, if the readers see that even a mainstream-pornstar biography topic is treated in an encyclopedic way, in a way that even this article can reach a high-level quality in Wikipedian hands. And, although you say that your reasoning "would far outweigh" other reasonings, I see no reasonings of yours! And "irreversible" don't you think is a bit strong term?--Yannismarou (talk) 11:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

And note that, as David Levy says that he "has been called "prudish" and "old-fashioned,"" I would also not qualify myself as a "progressive" or anything similar; probably the opposite!--Yannismarou (talk) 11:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Cricket, what is your reasoning? That you dislike pornography? I do too, but that has absolutely no bearing on the article's quality or our mission as an encyclopedia. As Yannismarou noted, this is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the degree of professionalism with which we're capable of covering such a topic.

And yes, this is an area in which I'm extremely conservative. I disapprove of pornography, but I wouldn't be remotely offended if this article were to appear on the main page (because I approve of high-quality encyclopedia articles on all notable subjects). —David Levy 12:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The damage to this encyclopedia's reputation would be irreversible

Um. Anyone even vaguely aware of Wikipedia knows its reputation as a reliable and useful source is very much debatable.

Basically, I think this falls under Wikipedia being uncensored. Who is Raul to decide what is offensive and what isn't? No offense to Raul but you're really not all that special.--208.82.225.232 (talk) 10:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Oort cloud

I was wondering if we could get this article featured because it passed FAC a while ago. Thanks, ~~Meldshal42 (talk) 01:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

"A while ago"? It passed on April 12. :) You can always nominate it at WP:TFA/R, however. María (habla conmigo) 13:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Unreplied suggestion

Raul did not reply here: Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/July_2,_2008. Regards, --Efe (talk) 00:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

"Today's featured article/Date" pages

Would it be possible to have a link to the article as it was on the date it was featured, on the "Today's featured article/Date" page? Louis Waweru  Talk  12:33, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Someone has succumbed to the Dark Side, I just know it...

Correct me if I am mistaken, but the image of Ian McDiarmid, the subject of a BLP article is being used in the TFA Palpatine. The image is not, in point of fact, even in the Palpatine article. I am guessing that Mrs. McDiarmid and all his young-uns would be mighty disappointed to know that the chap they have been calling Daddy all this time is in fact a force-abusing megalomaniac from Naboo. Maybe we should reinsert a more appropriate image from the Palpatine article, instead of damaging the actor's reputation by equating him with a character he finished portraying over three years ago?
How did this mistake happen? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 04:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You've been around a while, Arcayne... Surely you know that there are to be no fair-use pictures on the main page, period? It's kinda dumb for cases like this, but the most hardline fair-use enforcers will talk you to death until you give up all hope. Grandmasterka 05:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't know that - but learning such fulfills my daily duty of learning something new at Wikipedia every day. Might I ask why the article was not run sans image, then? The image culled was from a non-FA article (for the actor). The actor plays a part; he is not the character. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 05:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

And perhaps a bit more care needs to be taken in actually selecting a TFA. If it doesn't have a free image, then either:

• 1. maybe it should not be selected;
• 2. it should be run, sans image; or
• 3. It should be removed from the selection pool for TFA.

Hunting around for a free image that doesn't even appear in the article is intellectually dishonest. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 06:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

We usually simply avoid the issue by having no picture at all in situations like this. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:13, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I am okay with that happening. I am rather guessing that the actor might appreciate that, as well. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 06:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Wot no pictuur?

Am I missing something? Can't we have a pictur with Chinua Achebe? I realise something's happening with the licensing of the main picture - but surely this would do as a subsitution? --Joopercoopers (talk) 22:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The 1994 edition of Achebe's Things Fall Apart which has become one of the most important books in African literature

Main page thumbnail

I really think that the thumbnail image on the main page for United Airlines Flight 93 should be changed. The current image does not look very good as a thumbnail, and it's hard to tell exactly what the image is without looking at its original size. I personally think that the drawing of the flight path (Image:UA93 path.svg) should be used instead as it's today's featured article. –Dream out loud (talk) 04:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

More needed

Just a heads-up to Raul, we're only a few hours from the next update and we lack a TFA for tomorrow. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 21:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Typo

The front page blurb has a small typo. Most of the time, Augustus's given name is correctly cited as "Octavian," but one instance says "Octavius" instead. *** Crotalus *** 01:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Today's featured article

We are only hours from tomorrow, and I notice that there's no article set up for tomorrow. Heads up, Raul! Royalbroil 19:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Halloween 2008

Please expand the news tip at Wikipedia Signpost regarding Today's featured article Halloween 2008 post. -- Suntag ☼ 17:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Delhi

Hi,

The current image of Delhi is foggy and unclear & unencyclopedic and does not show much. Can someone please change the image of Delhi on the main page to one of the following:

. These are icons of Delhi and a symbol of the city. Thanks Nikkul (talk) 02:51, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Priestfield Stadium

Can you edit the Priestfield Stadium article to tell readers what country this is in? Thanks Fg2 (talk) 01:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Tooltips and alternative text

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right place, but I wanted to leave a more thorough explanation of my edit to today's featured article. I added code that will prevent the image's tooltip ("Opeth performing at the Download Festival in June 2006") from being read to users with screen readers, since the image is lost on blind users anyway. I don't think this will be too controversial, but I wanted to at least make more people aware of the issue. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 19:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make sense. One explicit purpose for alt attributes is so that screen readers can read them. howcheng {chat} 22:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Howcheng. The image may be 'lost on blind users anyway', but why should blind users be denied a description of the image? Nevermind that it is erroneous to presume that only blind users utilize screen readers.Maralia (talk) 22:59, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

*sigh* I've reverted - I see your point now. Sorry for the trouble. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 23:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks for reconsidering your edit. Maralia (talk) 00:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Emmeline Pankhurst blurb

I'm honored to see Emmeline Pankhurst on deck for December 6. However (and I apologize if I should post this somewhere else), the front-page blurb does not mention the organisation for which she was most well-known, the Women's Social and Political Union. (Though it does refer to the WSPU acronym three times.) I didn't think it prudent to add this myself, so I leave it to Raul's capable hands. Cheers! Scartol • Tok 18:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Raul654 (talk) 18:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. You rock. Cheers! Scartol • Tok 02:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Has this been discussed before? Would it be a bad idea to semi-protect pages that go on the main page to reduce vandalism, on the day that they go on? 00:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Heads up

People here might be interested in commenting on a discussion about including GA on the Main Page. Considering that this could affect TFA, I think that you guys should be notified. Link is here: Wikipedia_talk:2008_main_page_redesign_proposal#Introducing_GA_to_main_page. Cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Lists

Lists are articles nevertheless so why cannot featured lists be candidates for TfA? Simply south not SS, sorry 13:39, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Some lists are just plain lists, with little or no prose—take Timeline of the 2006 Pacific hurricane season for example. However, lists such as List of storms in the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season are essentially articles, so I don't see why they shouldn't be on the main page. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 15:27, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

We have enough articles in the queue without including lists and I do not see how that hurricane article qualifies as a list. –thedemonhog talk • edits 18:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for an abbreviated TFA

I've noticed that the {{TFA}} template is rarely used and hardly anyone transluses today's featured article into their user page. Given the amount of work that goes into bringing articles to featured status, this seems to be quite a shame. Has anyone ever thought of introducing an abbreviated version of TFA which would be more suitable for inclusion in user pages? I was thinking a creating a template with the picture and first fifty words from TFA followed by (...). — Blue-Haired Lawyer 21:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: 4_Chan as a FA

I'm here to speak my mind, and considering I don't have a lot, this will be short :) Seriously, whoever selected 4chan as a Featured Article has just put most vandal fighters and hugglers on Wikipedia onto full alert. We've already been at Defcon 1 once since midnight. Please, before you consider something for the front page, consider the repercussions on the rest of the site. Thanks. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 06:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Title fixed to stop setting off the vandal bot alarms... Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 07:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• I found the article quite informative <grin>... but, yeah, the vandalism tonight is at a level I certainly haven't seen in a while. —Noah 07:03, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Just think of it as a training session for all the new admins. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 14:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

History of evolutionary thought blurb

Can an administrator fix the February 12 blurb? The first sentence has two "has"'s. Awadewit (talk) 22:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

image choices

For the integrity of and fairness to the FAs, it seems essential that the image chosen for the Main Page summary of a FA be an image used in the FA. For example, the image used for February 12, 2009 is File:Human evolution.svg - an image that is not used in the article. That image isn't used in any science-related article. If an image isn't worthy of inclusion in a FA then it shouldn't be worthy of representing said FA in the Main Page summary. Kingturtle (talk) 12:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I see that this image choice was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/February 12, 2009 - but I think this conversation needs to be addressed here, not just for this instance, but all instances. Kingturtle (talk) 12:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

clarification...

Is the reason 300 (film) has no image on the Main Page because only free images are to appear on the Main Page? Just wanted some clarification. Kingturtle (talk) 03:39, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Tentative request

14 April 2009 is the 250th anniversary of the death of George Frideric Handel. At present there are no featured Handel articles which could be nominated for this TFA slot, but there is Agrippina (opera), currently at FAC. This article may of course fail to become featured, but could I ask that, for the moment, the 14 April slot be held so that this important anniversary could if possible be marked at TFA? We will know Agrippina's fate in a week or so, and obviously, if there is an existing FA with an equal or better claim to that slot, so be it. But otherwise it would be good to see Handel-related material here. Brianboulton (talk) 12:08, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Main page vandalism surge

Is there any sensible place to pre-emptively beg for help on the issue. Tommorow's FA, Peter Jones (missionary), was written essentially by me and User:CJLippert, and he's not very active. I wouldn't be surprised if we're the only two who have it watchlisted. WilyD 14:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

A lot of vandal-fighters watch the main page articles - no need to worry. :) Awadewit (talk) 03:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

There are usually a few Hugglers active at any given time, so no need to worry. –Juliancolton ^Talk · ^Review 04:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Ancient Egypt

For some reason, I swear that I saw today's featured article (Ancient Egypt) on the main page about a year ago. Am I just insane? Artichoker^[talk] 02:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't see another TFA date hidden in the history... —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Kevin Pietersen

...is currently on the front page, but WP:CRIC want to update the blurb as it is currently out of date. I don't know if the hook text has been substantially changed while on the front page before, but I hope this can be done. Here is the proposed new blurb:

Kevin Pietersen (born 1980) is an English international cricketer who plays domestic cricket for Hampshire County Cricket Club. Born in South Africa, Pietersen made his first-class debut for Natal. In 2001, he moved to England, joining Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, to further his opportunities for playing at international level after voicing his displeasure at the racial quota system in place in South Africa. He qualified to play for England in 2004 making his One Day International (ODI) debut in November, and his Test match debut in the 2005 Ashes series. The attacking right-handed batsman and occasional off spin bowler became the fastest batsman to reach both 1000 and 2000 runs in ODI cricket, and has the highest average of any England player to have played more than 20 innings of one-day cricket. In July 2008, after a century against South Africa, The Times called him "the most complete batsman in cricket". He was appointed England captain in August 2008 but resigned in January 2009, after just three Tests and nine ODIs, following a dispute with England coach Peter Moores. Pieteresen has the second highest run-total from his first 25 Tests (behind only Donald Bradman and was only the fourth player in history to score 1,000 Test runs in three consecutive calendar years. (more...)

I'm not sure how much traffic this page gets, and I'd rather take this up with Raul, but from his contributions he doesn't seem to be online at the moment. Nev1 (talk) 10:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Modest proposal

The blurb for the TFA is understandably full protected, as it shows up on the Main Page. However, the blurbs for future TFA's are also full protected, from the moment of their creation. As a result, after Raul writes the blurb, only admins get to make changes. This seems rather unwikilike, especially if admins make editorial changes more substantial than adding a wikilink or fixing a grammar error. Yes, I know, I could make {{editprotected}} requests, but it seems more in the spirit of Wikipedia to make editing the blurb open to all. I propose that the blurb not be edit protected until 1-2 days before it shows up on the Main Page. This would give mere mortals a few days to make changes. The 1-2 days of protection prior to display on the Main Page would give Raul (or any admin, I suppose) a chance to verify that no vandalism has snuck in, that it conforms to the MOS, that it hasn't gone all pear-shaped, etc. Even if Raul consistently reverted back to his original version, I'd at least like for normal editors to be able to make changes first. It seems odd that the most visible display of Wikipedia's strengths is treated so differently than every other page.

My usual disclaimer: I poked around a little to see if this has been discussed before (I'm sure it has), but couldn't find it quickly and lost the enthusiasm for looking more deeply. If anyone knows offhand where a previous discussion is, I'd appreciate a link. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually it is only today's and tomorrow's which are protected, which I think is appropriate. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:11, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

That is not the case. For example, as of today, the featured article blurbs are written through 15 August, and all eleven pages are full protected. As near as I can tell, the pages are full protected even before they are created. As I said above, if it were only 1 or 2 days in advance, that seems perfectly reasonable. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

On further review, it appears they are protected through some kind of cascading protection; the pages themselves don't seem to be individually protected. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:15, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry you are right. They were on the title blacklist. As Raul was happy for these not to be protected, I have lowered the protection so that any confirmed user can edit them. However some care is needed here as it would be possible for vandalism to go unspotted before reaching the main page. Today's and Tomorrow's blurbs are still fully protected via cascade-protection. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Martin. It seems like kind of a backwater; hopefully it won't attract vandals or edit warriors. --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Gropecunt Lane

There's a lot of complaints coming into OTRS about featuring this article due to its title. It might be worth not TFAing it again. Stifle (talk) 09:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean "not TFAing it again"? I thought an article could only be TFA once anyway? Nev1 (talk) 09:54, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, if that's the case, then no problem. I had thought there had been repeats in the past. Stifle (talk) 10:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Repeats are rare. IIRC we've had less than 6 in over 1,000 TFAs. This isn't a likely candidate.--chaser (talk) 04:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

We've actually had only one, Barack Obama. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I will always have issues with this little corner of Wikipedia having a 'director', I fully support and applaud Raul for courageously listing Gropecunt Lane as a TFA. Paulbrock (talk) 16:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Ditto the applause! Omphaloscope talk 23:10, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Well I thought this was a poor choice, as did the six people Raul mentioned on his talk page that emailed OTRS about it.--chaser (talk) 04:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

"Premiere"? Seriously?

The featured article of the day is the article about the pilot episode of The O.C.? This was okayed? That's just totally embarrassing. john k (talk) 19:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Featured articles are chosen on their "accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style" (see also WP:FA?), not on their appeal to certain groups or interest. Almost anything that reaches FA can be on the Main Page. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It's fine for it to be a featured article. For it to be the featured article of the day is ridiculous. Having The O.C. as a featured article of the day would even be fine. But an article on a TV episode? It's rather absurd. john k (talk) 02:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I guess it's a matter of opinion, although I, not being much of a TV watcher, don't find the topic very fascinating either. We've had more snooze-worthy articles at TFA too, such as a six-mile-long road. FWiW, articles are chosen for TFA by their relevance to the date on which they are selected, the importance of the article (with regard to core- and vital-article categories), and time since it was promoted to FA. See WP:TFAR for more information. In any case, I think it's interesting that Wikipedia can have comprehensive articles on so many varying topics with which other encyclopedias wouldn't bother, such as said TV episode or same-sex marriage in Spain. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

thank you fa

for not having a 9/11 related article this year. 66.220.124.56 (talk) 05:23, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Protection? What protection?

This might be a naive question, but can someone tell me what is the nature of the "protection" allegedly given to featured articles during the 24 hours in which they are TFA? I don't notice any protection at all - such article are assailed with mindless vandalism the moment they appear on the main page. Why is this permitted? Brianboulton (talk) 22:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

TFAs are "move-protected", which means during the 24 hours they're on the main page, they cannot be moved by anyone other than sysops. This is mainly to prevent vandalism, since page-move vandalism can cause extensive damage that needs to be cleaned up by an administrator. On the other hand, regular vandalism can be reverted in seconds by anybody, which is why they're usually not protected to editing. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Regular vandalism may be reverted in seconds by anybody, but this is very time consuming. Also, sly vandalism can and does get through and can remain undetected. Why not give semi-protection from editing, so that for the 24 hours of TFA only registered editors can edit there? This must have been suggested before, so presumably someone thinks that the rights of IPs to vandalise must be preserved at all costs. Very odd. Brianboulton (talk) 00:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

It's been explained to me previously that we want to encourage new users to try out editing, and emphasize strongly the "anybody can edit" ethos to new users. One way this is done is to say "look, you can even edit the article on the main page." I've got some doubt how many good editors we bring in due to their ability to edit the TFA, but I can see how it's a good move politically. Kind of like the President of Kia Motors driving a Kia; sure, he'd rather drive something else, and no one is going to buy a Kia because he's driving one, but it would damage the brand if he drove something else (don't look that up, by the way, I completely made it up). As Julian says above, a large number of editors put the TFA on their watchlist, so vandalism is reverted much faster than on a normal page. All in all, like everything else around here, it's a compromise between competing desires, but it tends to come out all right in the end. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:31, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

October 13th FA

Just a suggestion, perhaps File:SmashBall.svg can be used for Super Smash Bros. Brawl while on the main page, similar to how File:Triforce.svg was used for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The smash ball image is a free commons image and represents an in-game object that also appears in the game's logo. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC))

Occasional twin article(s) on mainpage suggestion

discuss here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: Caversham, New Zealand

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!

As creator of this article, I was deliberately holding off on nomination of this for the front page until Otago Anniversary Day on March 23rd next year. It would have been nice if someone had given the main writers of the article some advanced warning that this had been nominated! Grutness...wha? 22:21, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Year changeover link problem

Could someone look at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 2010 and work out how to fix the link on the calendar that should lead back to the December 2009 TFA archive, but is taking people to the December 2010 one? And say here which template neede fixing, as I couldn't work it out. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 07:15, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

A bot for talk page updates

There should be a bot making sure all WP:TFAs have their article history updated like this and this. I only check for WP:CHICAGO articles.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought User:Gimmebot did that? ex. [5] —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 02:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

GimmeBot does, and already had in both of the cases listed above; I don't know why TonyTheTiger is adding maindate twice. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You are not paying attention to what I am doing. Adding maindate does not provide the links in T:AH the way that I add it as an action. Look at the difference between what the bot is doing and what I am asking it to do. They are totally different things. Making the TFA an action provides a link for the page at the time of the main date like with any other action and also links the TFA blurb page.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That seems like a lot of work just to add an oldid (GimmeBot already links to the blurb). I'm also not sure it's worth the work to add the oldid at the time the article goes TFA, since articles usually undergo improvement while on the main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It is certainly a lot of work to do it manually. Once a bot is set up it is nothing (As I understand bots to work). However, maybe the oldid should be from the conclusion of the TFA run. A bot could go back through all the TFAs that have been done "wrong" in this regard. Keep in mind it would both take care of the oldid and the TFA blurb page. These make the article history more robust.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The bot might have to do some work on old TFAs that have been FARed since TFA because it would have to insert an action in the sequence and shift subsequent actions down one, if this idea is approved.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Image in the upcoming TFA

I added an image of one of the globes to Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 15, 2010. The image is a bit dark, so I was not sure how it looked (but thought it better than no image at all). Can someone clean up the image a bit? I did not move it here to protect it as I thought a better version might be forthcoming. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Protected in any event. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 22:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Too many computer games

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

you post too many articles about computer games in the daily entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.103.228.4 (talk) 15:17, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:TFASTATS

For a bit of fun, and considering that Wife selling got over 300,000 views yesterday, I thought I'd propose a WP:TFASTATS page, in a similar vein to the WP:DYKSTATS page.

I've made a start at User:Parrot of Doom/WP:TFASTATS. Feel free to change the templates, add articles you're aware of, and rip the piss out of me for such a silly idea. Parrot of Doom 19:10, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any objection, as long as people don't get all hot and bothered about it.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:33, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't like the idea. Counts on Wikipedia (WP:WBE, WP:DYKSTATS, WP:WBFAN, the wretched WP:WIKICUP, and so on…) are in general a fairly corrosive influence; they promote a "mine's bigger than yours" mentality while simultaneously feeding a drive towards the lowest common denominator. I can just about see a need for "most viewed pages" lists like this within projects, to give an idea of what the most urgent areas needing attention are, but I think that this would fuel an attitude of "Ceawlin of Wessex got 18k views while Flower (video game) the next day got 90k, so the public obviously want more videogames and less history, and we should give the people what they want". Besides, the Toolserver stats that tool uses are so glitchy (unless you actually think that Roman–Persian Wars got zero pageviews when it was TFA), that it's impossible to get meaningful figures from it. – iridescent 19:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Iridescent makes a good point. I have a compromise proposal - let's create the page, but set the minimum threshold fairly high (200+ hits) so that only a few articles per year get added. Raul654 (talk) 19:40, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that would probably be a little on the high side. Over 100,000 hits is pretty rare, over 150,000 is exceedingly rare. I also think there's a problem of getting the message out that the page exists. Primary contributors and FA proposers will almost certainly be fully aware of the hits that "their" articles received when TFA'd, but few other people will be.

I'm aware that this page might also cause a minor push to making Wikipedia's front page a little more salacious; I'd like to nip that in the bud and say that I think you do a good job of mixing the front page up Raul, so I have no worries there. Parrot of Doom 19:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Are those numbers complete? I think you overlooked Barack Obama, which had 2.3 million on what I think was his TFA day. McCain probably had a ton too.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:32, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Nah, I know of no method of searching Wikipedia for these stats. I've added Obama and McCain, however. Parrot of Doom 22:02, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

The fastest, most effecient way to do it would be with a bot run. Henrik would be the best person to ask. Raul654 (talk) 23:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Are there stats for the least viewed main page FA's? I think that record will be smashed tomorrow. --Mkativerata (talk) 06:06, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

• Ok I've asked Henrik to see if he can help. Meanwhile, if nobody minds, could someone who deals with WP or Wikipedia: pages move it to the correct location? I'm unsure if it should be WP:TFASTATS or Wikipedia:TFASTATS Parrot of Doom 13:23, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Thought

Might it avoid situations like this in future if the original FAC nominator of an article were advised when it was scheduled for the main page? That way, if an article were being saved for a forthcoming anniversary they could request Raul change the scheduling, and it would also put them on notice that the article's likely to be edited heavily and/or come under vandal attack. Presumably it wouldn't be too complicated for a bot to do. – iridescent 13:24, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Time to dispense with WP:NOPRO?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Well, this was fun to read through, though not too horrible. The general consensus here seems to be that Today's Featured Article should be treated the same as any other article and be protected as warranted by the level of vandalism. While a small number of editors thought that WP:NOPRO was still valid, the vast majority here expressed the opinion that it was likely outdated and needed to be deprecated in favor of working under the regular protection policy. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 20:02, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

This is a request for comment on how we treat Today's Featured Article with regard to protection HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:03, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

To elaborate, it seems that Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection has become an outdated guideline with the increase in vandalism that Wikipedia as a whole and TFA in particular have seen. Featured articles are supposed to represent the very best quality work produced by Wikipedia's editors, and yet the one article featured on the Main Page is the most likely article to be found in a vandalised state, imparting false or no information to the reader. Often, the vandalism is such that it is back almost immediately after it is reverted. Yet editors do not request protection of the article, even when bots and automated tools cannot keep up with the level of vandalism because such requests are almost always declined by administrators who cite this guideline as their rationale. Indeed, it seems that this one guideline is given higher priority than core policies, including WP:BLP. For example, on the recently featured Kirsten Dunst (protection log), an administrator protected the article after a massive spate of vandalism including BLP issues, only to be reverted by another a few hours later, citing WP:NOPRO. The vandalism continued and the article was later re-protected. I'd like to put this to the community to decide:

• Should we treat the protection of Today's Featured Article the same as that of any other article, or do we continue with this guideline in place? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:03, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Just to come back to the "attracts new editors" argument, in my own experience, I find it confuses more people than anything else. For examples, take a look at this comment on Talk:Kirsten Dunst while the article was TFA, or this one on Talk:Space Invaders, yesterday's TFA. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:12, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Same as any other article of course. Aiken ♫ 01:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Does that mean you believe it should be always semi protected as soon as it goes live? —Soap— 01:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I'd strongly oppose that. It should be treated like any other article- if the vandalism is beyond what can be easily coped with, then it should be protected, but the aim would still be to keep it unprotected as long as it's sensible to do so. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's true that vandalism on a currently live TFA gets reverted much more quickly than most any other article. I could agree with the words you write here while still believing the current policy is best because the definition of "easily coped with" is so flexible. —Soap— 01:30, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

It is indeed flexible, but this discussion is about whether we should be treating TFA like any other article. We'd probably need another long, drawn out discussion to re-write the guideline (or write another one), though I'm open to suggestions. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:36, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• I believe the current policy is good. Semi-protections of the TFA should be rare, brief, and only in response to unusual levels of vandalism. Minor vandalism is not a problem because the TFA is probably the most watched article on the wiki and people on Huggle can revert any bad edits within seconds. —Soap— 01:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• Yeah they can, but it doesn't always happen like that. Aaroncrick ^TALK 01:24, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• Just noting that I havent been paying attention to this RfC and Im going to withdraw my vote because I dont really feel that strongly about it. Whatever happens is all the same to me. —Soap— 01:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

• I believe the current policy is bad. TFA should be treated like any other article. If it gets vandalized more than a bit, consider some protection. The WP:NOPRO policy saying they should almost never be protected or semi protected is lame and out of touch with reality, although it does gibe with practice. Now, if we had working flagged revisions, that'd be a different story, we could let people edit to their hearts content. dispense with WP:NOPRO ++Lar: t/c 01:28, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Today's Featured Article should be semi-protected as long as it is on the main page. Other than providing mindless glee for the seemingly endless hordes of vandals and hours of preventable whack-a-mole for our diligent Huggle guardians, WP:NOPRO, while noble in spirit, serves no practical purpose that could not be served otherwise and better. Assuming that there is even one unregistered editor with a valuable contribution to make among the zillions of unregistered vandals, they would not be precluded from making it —at most — 24 hours later. Meanwhile we would preclude countless disruptions of the sort that would never be tolerated on even the least read article anywhere but the main page. --Nasty Housecat (talk) 01:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Per Lar, my first choice would be flagged revisions. My second choice is change the policy to 24 hour semi-protection. My third choice is treat it like any other article (but to be honest, if we treat it like every other article, that will basically end up the same as 24 hour semi-protection; I've never seen a TFA that wasn't vandalized more than it takes to get semi'd for 3 days at RFPP). It's a tradeoff, but as WP has matured, there are fewer and fewer people who don't know that you can edit a page, and more and more who are concerned about WP's quality. Improving WP's reputation for quality (FA's are the best we have to offer, and the TFA the most visible) is more important than hooking the 0.001% of new and good editors who will only try to join if they can edit the TFA. --Floquensock (talk) 01:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• I agree with Nasty Housecat. TFAs are a huge vandal magnet, warranting semi-protection while the article is on the Main Page. Krakatoa (talk) 02:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• ALL Featured articles should be semi-protected while on the Main Page. If Wikipedia is ever going to get better credibility, then the featured article should be free of vandalism by IP editors. They should use the {{Editsemiprotected}} template on its talk page and someone will get to those requests PROMPTLY! Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• When I read arguments against protecting articles that are on the Main Page, I imagine those arguments can be easily translated as, "I hold the principle of Anyone Can Edit so dear that I am willing to make other people clean up messes that could be easily avoided." Now, it's entirely possible that someone who holds this belief could watchlist every article linked from the Main Page and clean them up as vandalism occurs. But do these people stay awake 24 hours a day every day, or do they occasionally sleep, allowing others to clean up while they snooze? tl;dr: Articles that are linked from the Main Page should be semi-protected at the very least and fully-protected at best. NOPRO must go. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 03:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• "and yet the one article featured on the Main Page is the most likely article to be found in a vandalised state, imparting false or no information to the reader." please show evidence that this claim is accurate. Resolute 03:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

For example: Today's Featured Article. Every TFA is like this. Many of them are much, much worse. How does this make the encyclopedia better? --Nasty Housecat (talk) 03:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that shows 'yet the one article featured on the Main Page is the most likely article to be found in a vandalised state, imparting false or no information to the reader'. While I haven't done any analysis other then a brief glance, my glance tells me and I also strongly suspect any analysis will show that most of the time (i.e. over 50%) the article is in a relatively unvandalised state i.e. the total amount of time between vandalism and it being fixed is less then the amount of time between it being fixed and the next vandalism. This isn't an argument for not protecting the page, it's questionable for example whether having a page 20% of the time (random guess) vandalised is a good thing and there's also the issue of all the time spent by editors keeping it clean but as with Resolute, I find it unlikely that the claim is accurate and the evidence so far doesn't suggest it's the case.

Edit: Actually perhaps I read that wrong it seems to be suggesting that the TFA is more likely to be found vandalised then another article rather then the TFA is more likely to be found vandalised then not. But I still doubt it's correct. On some articles in some cases vandalism last for days, so it's questionable whether the TFA is more likely to be found vandalised then certain other articles (although the TFA may be more likely to be found vandalised then a random article).

Nil Einne (talk) 10:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't analysed this since 2007, but I calculated then that the likelihood of seeing the TFA vandalised was 1 in 11, whereas the likelihood of seeing a random page vandalised is 1 in 920. However, as was pointed out then, random articles include both low and high traffic articles, whereas the average reader sees high traffic articles more often. I never found a way of calculating the likelihood of an average reader seeing a vandalised article. DrKiernan (talk) 11:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• I'd like to keep featured articles editable, so as to demonstrate the "anyone can edit" concept, but we must be realists - if we know these highly visible articles are going to get vandalised, the only sensible thing to do is semi-protect them. (After all, highly visible templates are fully protected, even with no particular expectation of vandalism.)--Kotniski (talk) 06:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Semi-protected while on the main page. Its a massive pain in the arse having to deal with the amount of vandalism some articles get. Wife selling was attacked mercilessly, thankfully that stopped once it was protected. Parrot of Doom 07:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Wife selling is a great example, it was chosen as the April 1st article for a reason, and I doubt what happened to it can be considered representative of the general experience. Random89 20:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Alright then, what about The Dark Side of the Moon which was protected, or Mary Toft which suffered similar vandalism, or Gropecunt Lane...and these are just articles in which I have a heavy involvement. I suspect there are many more FA contributors who are similarly pissed off with what happens on TFA day. Right now, the liberty of idiot vandals seems to be placed higher than anything else. Parrot of Doom 22:28, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Kirsten Dunst, Miranda Otto... both BLPs, as well. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I freely admit that there are legitimate reasons to treat BLPs differently, and that perhaps NOPRO (or the guideline replacing it subsequent to this discussion?) should differentiate between BLPs and other articles. Parrot, I really mean no disrespect to you if you are one of the primary contributors to these articles, and a couple of them are among my favourite Tfa's of all time, but just like Wife selling, I don't think most article attract the same attention as Mary Toft or Gropecunt Lane. Random89 06:14, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• I was the admin who unprotected Earth to start with, which rather kicked this whole thing off. I'm prefectly comfortable with that decision, because there were plenty of constructive IP edits, and the unconstructive ones (which really weren't that high for a TFA) were quickly dealt with. I generally support WP:NOPRO, though it would probably be sensible to try to tighten up the circumstances where protection is necessary for a TFA. GedUK  08:12, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• We have a policy to protect Featured Pictures (or at least we intend to - the number of reports made by Betacommand suggests we don't always do it immediately) to stop them being vandalised. Elen of the Roads (talk) 08:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• I generally support the ideas that NOPRO tries to get across, although there are times when we should protect such as with BLPs and controversial topics. The problem is this is a game of balancing, as both options have their good points and bad points. We have to pick between losing one of our methods of attracting new editors in favour of improving the featured article for readers, or choosing to continue as we do now potentially gaining new contributors, but potentially losing new readers who visit the vandalised TFA and give up on Wikipedia before they have really used it. Perhaps it is time we did choose to protect the featured article when it is vandalised, and thought up new strategies to attract new editors? --Taelus (talk) 08:58, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

There's no evidence that leaving the page unprotected attracts new contributors to the project. The most recent analysis indicated that any new accounts created were detrimental. I would infer from those figures that leaving it unprotected attracts poor editors such as vandals to the project rather than content builders. DrKiernan (talk) 11:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Then it is especially true that we should revise our methods of attracting new editors if that is the case. But that is a topic for another RfC. --Taelus (talk) 11:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• We can't have it both ways. If TFA is a showcase for our best work, it should remain in showcase condition while on display. That means at least semi-protection (I would personally give full protection for 24 hours). If we insist on blind adherence to the "anyone can edit" mantra, we shouldn't maintain a showcase. My concern is to limit not only the mindless, malicious vandalism that attacks TFAs but also the well-meaning but inappropriate and often inaccurate add-ons which can be highly detrimental to the article's quality though sometimes hard to spot. Brianboulton (talk) 09:06, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support protection or at least semi-protection, leaving TFA unprotected is a net negative. Stifle (talk) 11:17, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support either automatic protection, or treating TFA as no different from any other article and protecting when the vandalism gets heavy. Wikipedia's reputation for inaccuracy exists for a reason; I can see no good reason why our most visible article at any given time should also be the one most likely to be showing a vandalized version. The whole "people will see it and realise they can edit Wikipedia!" argument is outdated; it may have been true when Wikipedia was starting out, but now the world and his dog knows what Wikipedia is and how it works, IMO the people turned off by seeing vandalism and inaccuracy outnumber the potential recruits. – iridescent 12:22, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I just handled an OTRS ticket this week to the effect of "Did you know that anyone can edit Wikipedia articles? Are you sure that's a good idea?" I don't know how widespread that sentiment is, but there's still probably a large segment of the population that has never edited Wikipedia and for whom doing so would be a novel experience.--Chaser (talk) 15:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes, but… I'm not saying there are no people left who don't know what Wikipedia is; I'm saying that among people likely to want to contribute to Wikipedia, the "didn't know anyone could edit" contingent are likely to be substantially outnumbered by the "why should I waste my time helping these people when even their most prominent articles are full of vandalism and edit-wars?" attitude. It's exactly the same reason I'd support the removal of ITN from the main page, which again highlights Wikipedia at its most unstable to casual visitors who aren't sure if this whole "open source" thing is a good idea or not. – iridescent 16:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support treating the TFA as any other article. Wikipedia is ever-changing, and even though the NOPRO essay/guideline worked for quite a while, it's to the point where we shouldn't leave the article open to being blanked and replaced with obscenities for hundreds of people to see. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• I believe TFA should be treated like a regular article; just because it's on the main page doesn't mean it has special rights, although as soon as it is no longer on the main page, then unless the vandalism is severe, then it should be unprotected. We can't have vandals running around destroying articles. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• I like the idea of ditching WP:NOPRO and treating TFA like any other article. Automatic protection strikes me as overkill, since there will probably be a higher volume of requested edits for a high visibility page like TFA. Automatic semi-protection will be unnecessary at some points of the day. If NOPRO weren't a guideline, the protection policy would be enough for me to semi-protect during periods of heavy vandalism or when BLPs are featured.--Chaser (talk) 15:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support treating TFAs like any other article: if vandalism is high then semi-protect; however as it's such a prominent page, automatic semi-protection should be seriously considered, and I would support it. While an article may be improved while on the main page, more often than not it's a battle between vandals and watchers trying to maintain equilibrium. If an unregistered user wants to make a contribution, they're welcome to use the discussion page. Preventing vandalism on the TFA makes sense. It's one of the project's most prominent places and to leave it open to vandalism is counter-intuitive. Nev1 (talk) 15:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose automatic (and therefore mindless) semi-protection; strongly support WP:NOPRO as written; this is an attack on a straw man. Rather, we should consider whether The length of protection is as short as the situation reasonably permits should be installed elsewhere in protection polciy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Meh I think the problem here has been exaggerated. Most of the time TFA has admins and vandal fighters actively watching it and vandalism is removed quickly. I agree with the underlying idea behind NOTPRO that we want things on the main page to be edit-able if at all possible in order to be welcoming to new users On the other hand I am also in favor of being tough on vandals. So I guess I think maybe just weakening NOTPRO a bit would be a good "middle road." The language could be altered to indicate that the bar for protecting is a little bit higher, and that the speed at which vandal edits are being reverted should be the main criteria as opposed to the volume of bad edits. Honestly though I think those who are campaigning to change this have little actual evidence to support their claims, just a few recent examples. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Yes, please do it. The TFA's are attacked mercilessly all of the time by vandals. It should be protected when the level of vandalism on the article become excessive, just like every other article. While I don't support semi-protecting it for the entire time, we should be more liberal in protection of the TFA than we are now. As for BLP's, we should be even more liberal in protecting those. I can just hear someone going "Uh oh, I'm gonna be featured on Wikipedia. What if I get labeled as a pedophile persistently?"... I would support semi-protection of BLP's for the entire time they're on the main page. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 18:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• Anyone considering automatic (semi-)protection for the full 24 hours should go look at the main page. The most eye-catching words there are "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." (emphasis added). The principle that "anyone can edit" is part of the five pillars of this project. I agree that the volume of vandalism on the TFA is a problem, but blanket semi-protection for every TFA is the wrong default choice. Judicious use of temporary semi-protection makes far more sense. If we had a bot that dropped a note at ANI every day at 23:00 saying "Tomorrow's Featured Article is about to go live. Please watchlist it and semi-protect for an hour if vandalism warrants it" then I would surely follow that instruction. Targeted use of semi-protection during times of heavy vandalism would prevent most of it. Leaving the article editable during other times would keep the site inviting to more serious contributors. The best of both worlds.--Chaser (talk) 20:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, "anyone can edit" is one of the pillars, but it has never meant that anyone can edit anything at any time. Not just anyone can edit, for example, the main page itself. Or Barack Obama. Or any of the many other things that are protected for very good reasons. None of those restrictions trample on "anyone can edit." Why would a protection on TFA? --Nasty Housecat (talk) 22:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• I admit that there are times that TFA should have been protected, but due to NOPRO was not, however, I fear that getting rid of the guideline would most likely lead to it always being protected, which would be a very bad thing. The correct response is perhaps a slight re-wording of the guideline, not abolishing a system that for the most part works. Random89 20:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Could you please clarify in what way this would be "a very bad thing"? Nev1 (talk) 21:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that was not very specific on my part, what I meant is that without NOPRO we would have editors insisting that every TFA (and perhaps even every article linked from the main page) should be protected, when it is in many (most?) cases more beneficial to leave it open to editing. Random89 06:19, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• At the very least, we should get rid of this guideline. Why do we have a policy that deals with only one article? Our current guidelines on protection should be able to handle vandalism on the featured article. Also, to all editors who support not semi-protecting, would you also support unprotecting the Main Page? If not, how is it any different? --TorriTorri^{(Talk to me!)} 02:15, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support semi-protection. Especially if the article is vandalised. Aaroncrick ^TALK 02:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
• TFA should be protected, WP:NOPRO was created in a very arbitrary way. Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 02:30, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose (knowing I will get pelted here and also knowing that I have briefly protected a couple of TFAs before) – Today's Featured Article is the gateway to most future Wikipedians, and it shows a level of trust to the rest of the world; it's a way of telling people out there that "Hey! Yeah you! You can edit this article!" Freely semi-protecting Today's Featured Article will tell the rest of the world that not everyone can edit Wikipedia, and I don't think that's the right message to send to them; not to mention, this would directly contradict that little slogan that sits right above Today's Featured Article, which I need not mention as everyone knows what that says. –MuZemike 02:45, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Is the tiny proportion of new editors who, A) make constructive edits and B) continue to be productive editors, worth so much that we allow the other 95% to totally trash what is supposed to be our very best work? The first part of that slogan includes the word "encyclopaedia". What's the point of allowing anyone to edit a trashed article that's of no use to anyone? What use (aside from the libel) is an article that says nothing more than X is gay or that Kirsten Dunst was born in the year 1260 etc. The guideline was written in 2005, times have changed since then- Wikipedia is much higher profile and, sadly, vandalism is much more common, which is why the MP itself and everything transcluded directly thereon is fully protected. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:14, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

"is the gateway to most future Wikipedians" - that doesn't seem like a particularly likely assertion. Parrot of Doom 08:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'll join MuZemike in copping a pelting here, having thought about this over a few days. Vandalism of TFA is one of the idiosyncratic elements of en:wiki that makes it unique. The message "here is our best work; and you can edit it" is a powerful one. So powerful in my view that it would take extreme levels of vandalism to warrant its dilution. It is a message that says to the world of the project's confidence in the principles of open collaboration. There will be cases of extreme levels of vandalism, particularly for BLPs, where semi-protection is justified. So I support WP:NOTPRO although I think it should make specific mention of protection being justifed for BLP issues. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:17, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

So Main Page must be unprotected too. Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 03:19, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

What a silly comparison. There's a big difference between petty vandalism and the chaos of messing up the main page. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:20, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

No, there's no difference between Main Page unprotected (April 2007) and TFA, both are used like sandbox. Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 03:22, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with the principles behind WP:NOPRO, as long it is applied with common sense. Some days, the main page FA is barely touched. Great, no problems there. Most days, vandalism will increase, but it's easily and swiftly dealt with. Claims that the articles are left trashed and neglected while on the main page are gross exaggerations. If the vandalism gets out of hand, then go ahead and protect the thing. I've had to protect plenty. But one of the things I love about this project is that open editing actually works—it doesn't always work perfectly, granted, but by all rights it ought to be bloody friggin' chaos. But somehow it works, even on the main page featured article. We should take advantage of every opportunity to showcase our open editing philosophy. It's a tradeoff, but in my opinion it's worth it. --Bongwarrior (talk) 08:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
• Suggestion - What about using Cluebot with more aggressive settings on TFAs? (Or even Featured Articles more generally.) Rd232 ^talk 19:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose If we automatically protect the featured article it would give the impression that we assume that vandalism will take place and also gives the impression that not everybody can edit Wikipedia. Instead is there any way that we can change Cluebot so it maybe patrols the featured articles more agressively like Rd232 suggests? I'll pop by Cluebots owners page and let them know of this discussion --5 albert square (talk) 20:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose any automatic protection of TFA (as some above suggested) which would be inherently preemptive and thus in total contravention with our open editing philosophy, and is specifically disallowed by the protection policy. Comparisons with the Main Page are of no relevance, it's not an article so different standards apply and you know it would be unworkable to unprotect the MP, readers wouldn't see any clean version. Vandalism on TFA can be high at times but it's nothing in comparison, and vandalism is quickly dealt with, TFAs being well monitored. There are very good reasons for this guideline, explained there, the most important being that the TFA is, indeed, the featured article, and (usually) the most visible on Wikipedia and we need to send the message that Wikipedia can be edited. Now there are occasions where I think it's still too much vandalism even for a TFA and maybe we should allow a bit more of protection, ie change extreme to very high. Thus I oppose demoting the guideline and treat TFA as any other article, but may support altering it slightly to allow a bit more protection when vandalism is very high. In addition, isn't there a template which returns the title of the current TFA ? It could help to even better monitor it. Cenarium (talk) 21:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
• I would like to see TFA to be treated like any other article. Antonin Scalia was visited over 43,000 times on its day recently. Allowing me to estimate at least 30 people loaded the article every minute (higher during peak times of course). That means that about 60 people loaded today's featured article, the most visible element of our site, and saw that "sam likes boys lol" [6]. We should take a poll of current editors and see how many feel that they began editing because they noticed they could edit TFA. Jujutacular ^T · C 23:55, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

  I did.

• As for the substance, I oppose getting rid of NOPRO because it describes how we should treat every article: protect when necessary, do not protect unless necessary, and for no longer than necessary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:45, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

  • Um, isn't that what WP:PPOL is for? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

    It should be; but PPOL does not actually get around to saying that - it looks like it was written in the days when it was considered obvious that the burden of proof lay on those who wanted to protect a page. Even if it did, it would be useful to have a page which says what we have always held: that this applies, even more strongly, to TFA. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

• Frag nopro as out of touch with policy and practice. My own TFA horror story: Bone Wars on the main page. This is a low-traffic article, to which I am the only main contributor (still active, at least). Vandalism was coming faster than I or the bots could revert it, and no one else was helping. Since I had to log off soon, I semi-protected. Page protection was promptly reverted by an editor who didn't even bother to revert any of the resultant vandalism. Common sense should dictate page protection, not this "keeping up the illusion"-based rulebook. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 15:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
• Query/suggestion I don't suppose it is possible to have some kind of TFA watchlist subscription? One where the watched page gets switched to TFA as the TFA gets changed. User A1 (talk) 15:31, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes. We could take advantage of sticky watchlists to do this via page moves. See [7]. An admin bot could be set up to do the page moves even with move protected TFAs. To get autoremoval from watchlists, you'd probably have to contact the developers.--Chaser (talk) 20:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - TFA is so closely watched by anti-vandalism users that any case is removed nearly instantaneously. Leaving the TFA unprotected highlights our motto of "Anyone can edit," while not causing significant disruption. Mamyles (talk) 18:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure that those editors have better things to do than sit on the TFA reverting vandalism. Often there's only one person (sometimes me) sat on the history whacking the rollback button. They do that out of necessity, not because they enjoy it and if they didn't, the article would be ripped to shreds in hours if not minutes. If you don't think it's that bad, wait for next high-profile article and sit on the history from about 1pm UTC and see for yourself. Bear in mind I'm not advocating that every TFA should be protected, but we need to be more willing to do so when the vandalism gets extreme yet, for some reason, this guideline seems to override the protection policy. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - I think that the sentiment of NOPRO is too strong to lose and it doesn't say that a TFA can't ever be protected. I understand it can be a bit of burden to watch articles, but usually a project or editors have championed the articles and are willing to put in the time to clean the vandalism. TFA is a good idea for visitors to see what you get on Wikipedia, which is unprotected pages the majority of the time, even if that means a bit of vandalism. I know some feel otherwise, but I believe that seeing vandalism may even invite visitors to edit to clean it up as their first edit. I would also guess that some of test editors or vandals go on to become constructive editors, though perhaps not in the short-term. —Ost (talk) 13:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support I am anti-right-to-vandalize. This is a logical step. Spiesr (talk) 17:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
• Conditional support I understand both sides of the argument. On the one side we argue that everyone should be able to edit, and seeing that even a front page article is adaptable may be a good way to draw additional editors. On the other side this edit-ability means that we will be serving bad pages to our readers if we don't revert vandalism at once - something that cannot always be guaranteed. I agree with User:Jujutacular on this aspect; for every would-be editor we have a dozen others will see a vandalized page. Also keep in mind that FA's are extremely high quality article's which means that it is virtually certain that new contributers end up being reverted anyway, sometimes with a warning. Therefor i say - treat it as any other article. Our FA for today, United States Academic Decathlon, drew low amounts of vandalism and therefor didn't need protection at all. But some other days i can only sigh at the amount of vandalism a FA article has to endure. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 22:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per MuZemike (below), although something about BLPs needs to be added to NOPRO. People, without new editors, this project will eventually grind to a halt. If leaving a TFA unprotected results in more editors, that's great, and we shouldn't change. I think people are smart enough to realize what is going on and reload the page if they see a vandalized revision. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:03, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Today's Featured Article is the gateway to most future Wikipedians, and it shows a level of trust to the rest of the world; it's a way of telling people out there that "Hey! Yeah you! You can edit this article!" Freely semi-protecting Today's Featured Article will tell the rest of the world that not everyone can edit Wikipedia, and I don't think that's the right message to send to them; not to mention, this would directly contradict that little slogan that sits right above Today's Featured Article, which I need not mention as everyone knows what that says.

— MuZemike 02:45, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment Where is the evidence that editing the TFA is a gateway for new editors? Parrot of Doom 07:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment - Wikipedia:VPD#Save_and_Publish_Features might be relevant: if there was a "save page as draft/test" button available to users (even if they can't edit the live page), it would still help them get the idea of editing. There's also now an edit request link in MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext. Ultimately, this is one of the more obvious uses for Flagged Revisions (if/when that happens). Rd232 ^talk 13:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment - I did not so long ago propose adding random Editing Tasks to the front page: a page for cleanup, a page for wikifying, etc. Wouldn't it make sense to present articles to editors that actually need work (with appropriate help/guidance), and semiprotect the Featured article? Rd232 ^talk 13:59, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Evidently, this proposal will fail again, which is regrettable. There is no empirical data to support the theory that new editors join the fold because they saw a TFA and decided to do a test edit on it. More likely, newbies read an article of particular interest to them and think, "Hey, I can add something good to that." On the other hand, there is clear evidence that a TFA is a vandalism magnet. See, for example, this log of more than 130 vandalism edits/reversions to a FA during the 24-hour period when it was on the March 28, 2008, Main Page as TFA. Consider how many more readers may be turned off to Wikipedia as a reliable online encyclopedia and conclude it's not to be taken seriously or worth their time, when they click on the day's Featured Article, only to see blatant vandalism.  JGHowes  ^talk 04:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• Is there empirical data to support that readers see some vandalism and immediately write off Wikipedia? Removing NOPRO is not the only way to deal with this problem if it is the case that some readers are being turned off by vandals. Perhaps a link could be added on the Main Page pointing to the article's version before it was TFA or when the it achieved FA? —Ost (talk) 13:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• That's Wikipedia:Flagged revisions. We'll get it eventually.--Chaser (talk) 13:40, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• Of course, but that doesn't mean that something can't be done to provide stable versions in the interim if people believe this to be an issue. If I'm not mistake, an talk pages should already note the version where the article reached FA. —Ost (talk) 20:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• That would indeed be a good use of flagged revs, since that's pretty much what it does, but I have to ask what the point would be of only showing a stable version as things are- how would that help attract new editors while reducing vandalism. Also, it would have to be fully protected because editing an old version of a page reverts all changes made since that version, so that would kind of defeat the point. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• You do have a point about editing a version; I forgot it is possible and that protection is not possible for versions. One could create a protected page specifically for TfA that mirrors the content of a stable version, but that is getting a bit more complex. However, I didn't propose only showing the stable version, I proposed adding a link to a stable version. That way if readers are so concerned with not seeing vandalism, they can go to the version of the article that has been deemed appropriate. I realize a stable version is available in history or the talk page, but new readers wouldn't know that they are there.—Ost (talk)

• This sounds dismissive, for which I apologise, it's not meant to! I'm still not convinced it would make much difference- we'd still have vandals trashing the article, I'm not convinced it would help attract new editors (the supposed rationale for NOPRO) and the only difference would be that those who bother to click the second link will be guaranteed a non-vandalised version. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:15, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

it would make more sense to me in reverse: create a sort of "poor man's Flagged Revs" by having a sandboxed version of the TFA prominently linked from relevant places - most obviously, MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext can detect the current TFA and display a prominent custom message "you can't edit the live version right now, but you can edit a draft version of this page". Rd232 ^talk 11:55, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, this might be be a really good idea. I hope it doesn't get lost in this mass of text. Even if we had to do it manually, we could use page notices. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 04:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Unfortunately, leaving it unprotected conveys "The Encyclopedia anyone can vandalize" to more users than "The Encyclopedia anyone can edit" --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - I think that one of the most necessary things needed for Wikipdedia to surviven in the long run is the ability to recruit new users. One important part of this is that the first time they try (and this is likely to be the TFA), they succeed in doing an edit without any biting edit notices or edit filter warnings. Semi-protecting the TFA would interfere with the success of this edit. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• People keep making this kind of point in this discussion. I don't see the evidence that it is drawing in editors who then stay and are constructive, but it does annoy readers and waste the resources of existing editors. And, because TFA protectors do tend to be in angry mode, i think some of these people do get bitten - not surprisingly. So I wonder if it is even a good experience for these newbies. I think this special policy for TFA needs to go. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:46, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

• • Why not provide editing routes on the front page which are at least additional to, if not instead of, the TFA? See my remark above: basically, provide cleanup suggestions with simple instructions/help links. It would be constructive in itself, bring in more editors, and take heat away from TFA if TFA remains unprotected (or else be an arguably better substitute). Rd232 ^talk 11:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
    • Everybody's saying that it attracts new editors. Aside from the hordes of vandals it also attracts, nobody has provided any evidence of this and, in my experience, seeing a vandalised TFA actually confuses a lot of people. See the diffs I posted right at the top or this one from Talk:Ba Cut, yesterday's TFA. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:35, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
      • "Everybody" on the other side is saying that the vandalism drives away readers. Is there any proof of this either? I can just as easily envision the anti-cynical scenario with new editors joining to clean up the vandalism. —Ost (talk) 20:46, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support This is one of the exceedingly rare cases where semi-protection should be the norm in articlespace. I would be interested in some data on the half-life of an unprotected TFA. How long has it been since we went 24 hours without protecting one? Protonk (talk) 04:29, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Since yesterday. It almost always remains unprotected, except in unusual circumstances. --Bongwarrior (talk) 07:28, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

• Support semi-protection for TFA on the basis that while the article is the most likely to attract new editors, it is also the most likely to attract drive-by vandals. Consider that a newbie viewing TFA to find it full of 'I haxxored ur syte' and similar tripe may be put off WP moreso than one unable to edit the article. Here's another idea (bolded so that it's not lost in the sea of words, if that's bad form, just change it and let me know): add a notice alongside the standard 'you can't edit this article' explaining why. Something along the lines of 'this article is the most visible on WP today, and as such is protected from editing in order to maintain its integrity. However, there are {number} of other articles you can add to!'. Just my 2p. - Mobius Clock 15:08, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, the TFA is on several watchlists when it's on the Main Page, ClueBot and other anti-vandalism bots are in angry mode when dealing with the TFA and we could even tag every edit in #cvn-wp-en ^connect. The vandalism there is reverted within seconds, so there's no point in protecting yet more pages. --The Evil IP address (talk) 22:41, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Within seconds? -> This edit was on the article over 40 minutes. Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 00:27, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

This was in the lead of a main page article for around an hour and a half. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.168.148.116 (talk) 12:29, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Look this, another IP comment Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 05:12, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

• • • In this case, more people should watch the article and probably all edits to it should be reported to the CVN channel. But semi-protecting the article won't help with this, because you don't fix the real problem here. It's not the non-autoconfirmed users, but the vandals. If I want to vandalize, then I can also just as easily make an account and wait some time. The Facebook security expert Max Kelly, who once worked for the FBI, said it quite nice recently: "There will always remain gasps, and by fixing gasps, we will create new ones. Attacks are no nature catastrophes, there are human behind them. If we know why they're motivated to attack us instead of playing with their Xbox, then we'll be able to make their life more complicated" (src). It's pretty much the same here with Wikipedia's vandalism. I mean, it's not that I can't understand the desire for this, but this really isn't the solution. Innocent users shouldn't be punished for what their fellow users did, and even if we went for this, it wouldn't fix the problem. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:00, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

If that is true, then why are any of these approximately 5000 articles semi-protected as we discuss? I think it is safe to assume that none of them are being vandalized right now. Many of these are important and of broad general interest. But no one argues that protecting them has deterred serious editors from contributing. The proposal is to treat TFA the same. --Nasty Housecat (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

• Data point. Not that it proves anything, but as a useful example, today's TFA had about 70% of its content missing for half an hour. --Floquenbeam (talk) 12:46, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support demoting NOPRO. At the very least TFA should be protected under the same circumstances that other articles are. Automatic semi-protection would probably be wise, but making a special effort to keep TFA unprotected is a net negative. The idea that lots of new editors are brought in by leaving it unprotected is an unproven and unlikely claim, while the frequent vandalism of TFA is an established fact. --RL0919 (talk) 21:19, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
• Strong support. Many more people read Wikipedia than edit it. The general public already knows you can edit Wikipedia, but often thinks it's unreliable. It's much better to have them see "Page protected" when trying to edit than "f*ck obama!!!!!" at the top of the page. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:35, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support treating all articles the same, be they FA, DYK or ITN. It should be bourne in mind that the appearance of an article on the main page usually doesn't get it the level of traffic of our most popular articles - [8] - and the traffic it does get dies off quickly once it is no longer on the main page, while the popular articles continue to get the 20,000+ daily hits day after day. Popular articles are more likely to bring in new editors than FAs; articles on topics that people are interested in and search for themselves are those that will get their involvement. All articles that attract vandalism, regardless of how many hits they do or do not get, should be protected - and it doesn't matter that a bot or patroller will undo the vandalism within seconds, because the page a person clicks on will not get changed while it is being read, and it could be the vandalised version that existed for those few seconds between the vandalistic edit and the bot/patroller edit. Our most popular articles will be getting a page view per second, so if an incorrect edit exists for five seconds there will be five people reading that incorrect page, which though corrected on the live version, will still be in the vandalised version in the reader's browser cache. Multiply that by the number of vandalistic edits across the day, and there could be hundreds of people coming away from Wikipedia with a jaundiced view of our reliability. SilkTork *^YES! 10:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Automatic semi/full protection of TFA as such a measure both contradicts the protection policy, and assumes that ALL new users/anons are vandals (which contradicts our assumption of good faith). Feinoha ^{Talk, My master} 19:08, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
  • It doesn't assume that at all, that would be ridiculous. What it is based on (it's not really an assumption, more of an opinion) is the view that the costs of unprotection outweigh the benefits. Rd232 ^talk 19:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I am for semi protection --Iankap99 (talk) 02:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

• Support, essentially agree with above comment in support by RL0919 (talk · contribs). -- Cirt (talk) 17:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support treating TFA like any other article, and semi-protect/full protect as necessary. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 06:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Support. WP:NOPRO is one of the silliest policies on Wikipedia. Every day, the featured article suffers a large amount of vandalism - much of it going unreverted for long periods - and usually gets protected anyway. We could save ourselves so much of the energy wasted on reverting these edits by just auto-protecting the TFA. User:King of Hearts put it best above: 'Many more people read Wikipedia than edit it.', and ' It's much better to have them see "Page protected" when trying to edit than "f*ck obama!!!!!"'. Robofish (talk) 11:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support: I'm on the side of the removers, get rid of it! My reasoning is that most days (but not all) the pages are common targets for vandalism and are brought up often manually on WP:RFPP after being reported by a concerned editor which after waiting for any admin to respond before having it protected. Why not just cut out the middle man and automatically Semi protect any main page article for 1-4 days (or at least untill a time when it's off the main page and away from public attention. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I will also say that today's featured article (Halkett boat) has only been on the main page for about 7 hours (I'm guessing) and has alsready been hit by IP vandalism which means we have to go through the tedious process of an editor reporting it and waiting before it gets protected. By that time as more people see it and vandalise it the more annoying it is for people trying to read it and accertain fact from fiction. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 06:35, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose per MuZemike. I think it is really important we are the encyclopedia anyone can edit and we are perceived to be that. Protecting the main page (or even semi protecting) sends the wrong signal. Hobit (talk) 02:13, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The Main Page has been fully protected for several years and this RfC is about striking a balance between being an encyclopaedia (something that imparts information not tells the world that someone "is gay") and any moron being able to deface because he's bored/mentally retarded/other. Just look at the vandalism sustained on yesterdays TFA- even with the editnotice discussed below, that's the worst I've seen it for some time. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:21, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Alternatives to TFA unprotection

Discussion moved to [9] to get wider input and perhaps some momentum. Rd232 ^talk 01:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)}}

The main reason given to keep TFA unprotected is to encourage visitors to experiment and get into editing. Yet it's agreed that we don't like having our best content mucked around with: we are, in a way, treating our best content as a sandbox. If we can come up with sufficiently good alternative ways to get visitors into editing, it would make sense to showcase our best content, and have a separate sandbox. So:

1. Add a sort of "poor man's Flagged Revs" by having a sandboxed version of the TFA prominently linked from relevant places - most obviously, MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext can detect the current TFA and display a prominent custom message "you can't edit the live version right now, but you can edit a draft version of this page", when you click the Edit button and don't have permission to edit. Basically, create Wikipedia:TFAsandbox and at the beginning of each day, seed it with the day's TFA. Allow people to muck around at will, and provide a custom Sandbox editnotice which (a) actually helps first-timers and (b) points people to the Edit Request button now available on the Edit button of protected pages (only shown if you don't have the right to edit the page). This would work best in combination with 2.
2. Change "view source" (which may sound techy and off-putting, and certainly isn't inviting) to "edit this page". "View source" is shown if you can't edit the page - so the status quo makes sense in a way. But you want to lead people into how easy it is to edit (just get an account, make a few edits, etc), give them some info and useful links - plus that tab now has an "edit request" button if you can't edit, so it makes less sense than it used to. Let's stop putting people off editing.
3. Drawing on Wikipedia:Cleanup, create an additional "learn to edit" box below the Featured Picture box, with various categories of Editing Things To Do. Perhaps include current content RFCs too - people might spot a controversy of interest. Include some basic instructions on how to do stuff like copyediting, wikifying, and link to more detailed ones. Bottom line: the slogan is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Yet the front page gives no indication of the different ways you might be able to contribute.

All of these are worth doing regardless of the TFA protection issue - but if they are done, the cost/benefit of keeping it unprotected would be quite different. Rd232 ^talk 14:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with 100% of this. Simple, and if fully implemented, more inviting to potential new editors than an unprotected TFA. Well thought out, Rd232. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)\

I also agree. These are excellent suggestions. --Nasty Housecat (talk) 18:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Discussion continues at [[10]]. Rd232 ^talk 22:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Possible middle ground

• Throughout last night, I battled to keep United Kingdom general election, 2010, easily as high profile as any TFA, unprotected and actually had a surprising amount of success. The strategy I used was to create a big editnotice warning that vandalism would result in an immediate block and to follow through on that- blocking any vandals for a few hours. I don't know exactly how well it would work for TFA, but I think it's worth a try. Any thoughts? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:06, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• That's predicated on the assumption that TFA is always being watched by an admin, which clearly isn't the case. Today's FA, for instance, has so few people of any stripe, let alone admins, watching it that it doesn't even register on the counter. – iridescent 22:17, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure the general response to proposing that approach as an alternative to semi-protection will be that positive. I do see how it could work, but it depends on fine judgement - you don't want to block for editing tests. There's a reason there is a well-established gradient for warning about vandalism (cf WP:UTM). Also, if vandalism is coming from lots of IPs, rapid blocking may not help as much as you'd expect. However, the use of editnotices specifically for vandal-prone pages which might be otherwise semi-protected is worth considering, at least in less high-pressure situations - the type of article that attracts school IPs for instance. This should be a standard template dropped in the editnotice (cf Category:Editnotice templates.) Rd232 ^talk 22:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think it's worth a try- I normally watchlist the TFA so I could whack vandals as they appear, but obviously only for a few hours at a time. If we can get enough admins to watchlist every TFA, I think it might be worth trying. It seems to have worked on the election article- I was up til 4am, but I didn't have to protect it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Expanding on this, should we create a supplement to MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning as a template (eg {{TFAeditnotice}}, which can be dropped in as the editnotice for the TFA)? Whatever happens, it can't do any harm, and since TFA protection doesn't seem to be happening, it seems worth a go. It doesn't have to have take HJ Mitchell's "you will be blocked" approach; just having a much more visible "why not play in the sandbox" and other help links could make a difference. Anoneditwarning isn't very attention-getting because it's permanent. TFAeditnotice can be bigger and more colourful in getting across the message "yes you really can edit this page - it really will be live if you click Save; but why not try the sandbox for testing". (PS one advantage of using a template is that it can test for the current date, so it can be live only on the specified TFA day, and can be set up well in advance.) Rd232 ^talk 11:16, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. The concern about having enough admins to watch it could be solved by a wide announcement of this on AN so that admins at AIV etc don't decline reports based on this editnotice. I also like the "why not play in the sandbox" approach. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, FWIW I agree with the original proposal, there seems no reason to have special rules for today's featured article. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:TFA-editnotice

Well in the spirit being bold, I've gone ahead and created {{TFA-editnotice}}, and it can now be seen at today's TFA, Manitoba (log out for the full effect for the intended target audience). Comments? Rd232 ^talk 15:31, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Freakin' awesome! Yeah! Whoo-hoo! Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I echo Acps. Nice work, Rd! —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 18:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It can certainly evolve from the start I made, but if it seems like a good enough starting point, maybe we can incorporate it into the TFA process, with appropriate instructions. An admin needs to edit the relevant article editnotices to include the template with the relevant dates; the template ensures this can be done well in advance as it's only shown on the specified date. Someone more familiar with TFA workings would have to do that. Rd232 ^talk 19:29, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

An other possible proposal

Replace the standard wiki link on the main page with a permanent link to the last version before it becomes the TFA (a bot can do this); an admin may update the link to a subsequent good (i.e unvandalized) version. In this way, vandals won't affect what users see when they click on that link; and quite likely later vandals will revert earlier ones (assuming that the vandalism goes undetected). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Hell No: You will get people who dont know they are viewing the previous revision, editing the previous revision and than overwriting all new revisions because of it. Basically any actually contributions for the day will get scrubed which is as useless as fully protecting the page. In fact, full protection would be better than this idea since people wont waste thier time doing edits that are just going to get over written. I feel allowing semi-protection just like any other page and a big edit notice will do.   «l| Promethean ™|l»  (talk) 04:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I can't see any variation of this which would work; and I did try. NB for protection, an "edit notice" won't be much use! You mean what I've dubbed "can't edit" notices (Template:MediaWiki messages), which can display a custom message for the TFA. Rd232 ^talk 08:15, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

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

Why the obsession with Albertan 30's Politics?

I like stumbling over an obscure subject in the FA section as much as the next guy, but with today's FA on 1937 Social Credit backbenchers' revolt that makes what, 4-5 FA's covering basically the same subject... --85.165.252.165 (talk) 01:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Just highlighting the project's strong areas of deep coverage, I guess, along with Vietnamese politics in the 1960s and Australian cricketers from the 1940s. As an aside, I can't recall enjoying reading a TFA as much as I enjoyed today's. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

User:Steve Smith was on a one-man mission to FA just about everything related to Alberta politics. Fortunately for you, he's now an Arbcom member, so wont have as much time to do this. As is typical of politics, politics will slow the spread of politics. ;) Resolute 21:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

If you want a different subject, we have something like 33 featured articles on battleships and battlecruisers. ;-) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 15:05, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe. I am distressed at the recent lack of a Final Fantasy TFA, however. Are there any left that are eligible to put up on the main page? Resolute 19:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Screw Final Fantasy. Moar war articles! ;-) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 19:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Combine the two? Lets get a FA up on Sid and the Airship! Resolute 19:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Better idea: let's conspire to overthrow Raul so we can feature only Final Fantasy and battleships on TFA. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 19:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Only if we add hockey articles too. We might want to keep posting the Alberta politicians too... never hurts to stay in the good books of an Arbcom member.  ;) Resolute 21:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I've written ten FAs, all on Alberta provincial politics. Of these, four and a half are about the 1930s (Richard Gavin Reid, John Brownlee sex scandal, 1937 Social Credit backbenchers' revolt, Accurate News and Information Act, and half of Premiership of John Brownlee). For reasons I can't understand, four of the 1930s ones have been selected for TFA, while only one of the non-1930s ones (Ed Stelmach) has been. So while I think the reason that Alberta politics are overemphasized at TFA is because I spend so much time writing on them, why 1930s Alberta politics specifically are overrepresented might be better asked of Raul. Steve Smith (talk) 20:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Look, if you are tired of Alberta, IP, we can easily move east to Saskatchewan.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The Historian

Might I suggest File:Vlad Tepes 002.jpg as an image for The Historian? It is used in the article and is in the PD. Awadewit (talk) 00:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Solar system glut?

Is there a reason for featuring Jupiter Trojan so soon after rings of Neptune (19 May)? Espresso Addict (talk) 00:21, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I would ask Raul654. He schedules them.--Chaser (talk) 00:52, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

No particular reason. Raul654 (talk) 00:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Postponing Mary Rose

I was just made aware of that Mary Rose has been scheduled for mainpage featuring tomorrow. While I would certainly be very happy to see it on the mainpage earlier than expected, I would still like to request for its postponement until July 19, the anniversary of the sinking. I believe that it's much more appropriate to focus on the single most eventful date in the ship's history. Another important reason is that I've had a very fruitful collaboration with the Mary Rose Trust to release many unique, high-quality photos on free licenses, and I believe that this donation (see here for media attention) will attract more attention if its featured on the sinking date, something that I believe will also lead to increased goodwill towards Wikipedia.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:14, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Given the urgency I suggest you notify User:raul654 on his talkpage as well (in fact I will do it myself), otherwise it might be too late to do anything about it. Yoenit (talk) 14:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

TFA title

FYI, there's now a bot-updated template which returns the title of the current TFA, Template:TFA title. It is used to automatically display the TFA editnotice. You can use if for example to immediately access the different links related to the current TFA, e.g. using {{la}}: The Importance of Being Earnest (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Cenarium (talk) 14:27, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway has been moved to a pending changes article. Scheduled as TFA for June 25th. Are we running the pending changes trial on TFAs? If so, I might want to learn what to do in a hurry. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:20, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I haven't kept up with Pending changes issues, but User:Risker might know. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

TFA category representation

I gathered statistics on the representation of the various categories of featured articles at TFA. This is the data as of 23 July 2010:

Category	Total Articles	TFA Appearances	Percentage
Food & Drink	9	9	100.00%
Philosophy and Psychology	12	11	91.67%
Language	14	12	85.71%
Computing	17	17	100.00%
Mathematics	19	19	100.00%
Business	21	21	100.00%
Awards and vexillology	28	27	96.43%
Chemistry	34	34	100.00%
Education	35	29	82.86%
Engineering & Tech	38	33	86.84%
Law	42	37	88.10%
Health and Medicine	43	41	95.35%
Culture	56	44	78.57%
Religion and mythology	73	54	73.97%
Geology and meteorology	92	49	53.26%
Royalty	92	55	59.78%
Politics and Government	93	62	66.67%
Physics and astronomy	98	74	75.51%
Transportation	100	47	47.00%
Art, architecture, archaeology	109	90	82.57%
Video gaming	126	49	38.89%
Literature and Theatre	158	99	62.66%
Geography	175	101	57.71%
History	187	119	63.64%
Media	217	97	44.70%
Music	231	103	44.59%
Biology	242	111	45.87%
Sports	253	106	41.90%
Warfare	306	109	35.62%

A large graph comparing these values can be viewed here.

There are two obvious trends that I noticed: As the size of the category grows, the total number of articles which have been used for TFA increases, but the percentage decreases. I don't consider either of these trends to be problematic or even particularly interesting, but there are some exceptions to these trends that are worth thinking about. The Transport and Video gaming categories are represented significantly less than categories of comparable size. History is the most frequently represented category, despite there being other categories which are much larger, such as Sports and Warfare.

Why do you think these exceptions occur? The under-representation of categories may be related to the apparent abundance of very similar article titles within those categories. Transport has 10 articles which all begin with "New York State Route". Geology, geophysics and meteorology, which is represented less frequently than Religion despite having more articles, has 20 "Tropical Storm" articles and 37 "Hurricane articles". However, I don't see any such repetition within the Video gaming category.

Thoughts? Are these exceptions a problem? Or perhaps just a symptom of an underlying problem? If so, what can be done to correct them? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't see that there is a problem. Raul is trying to keep a balance. If a lot of video game articles are written, they can only be used so quickly. If you want your article to appear on the main page, go write it on food and drink, we're starved for such articles. But video games, hurricanes, warships, the competition is heavy. Personally, I write to my interests, with the result that if I write in a popular category, it tends to languish for a while before being used, but if I write about my own professional field of law, where there are very few articles that have not been TFA, Raul tends to grab them within weeks. It is important to remember that just because we have a lot of writers who like to write about Hurricanes in Nunavut or the Luxembourg Navy, readers's interests are not altered. Thanks for the stats, very interesting.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:33, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

What Wehwalt said. I'd also add that because "History" is a catch-all category for articles that don't fit smoothly anywhere else, it covers a much broader ground than some of the more specialized categories, so "similarity" in TFAR terms doesn't necessarily arise despite the articles being listed in the same category at TFA. – iridescent 17:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, even though it is a waste of perfectly good vodka, I wonder how hard it would be to write a FA on the Caesar... Resolute 19:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

That article should be deleted per WP:BEANS; Wikipedia should not be encouraging people to use fish as a mixer. Nev1 (talk) 20:15, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Of that we are in complete agreement. Though I am impressed at how Motts managed to take something as vile as tomato juice and make it worse. Resolute 22:41, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Tomorrow's image

I can't see the image at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 20, 2010, but can't find the problem. DrKiernan (talk) 13:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It worked fine yesterday but not today, which leads me to believe that the server which generates the thumbnails is down. Raul654 (talk) 14:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Right. Looks fine now. DrKiernan (talk) 14:46, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Picture for tomorrow's FA?

Resolved

 – Posted to WP:ERRORS as the blurb is already on the main page and that was probably the better place in the beginning. --meshach (talk) 00:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

For tomorrow's FA (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind) there is currently no picture. Would this be an appropriate one? Is is a free image and displays the setting for the game. meshach (talk) 18:37, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Notifications

While I realise that obviously no one owns any articles here, I'd like to suggest that major contributors are given some notification before Featured Articles that they have worked on are put on the main page, particularly when the articles have not been nominated for the placement but instead are chosen randomly. This is not only for the edification of the people who have worked on the article, but to ensure that people well versed in the subject matter have a chance to both copyedit the article beforehand and keep an eye on it during the day. I put a lot of work into Murray Maxwell and consider it one of the best examples of my work on Wikipedia, and so was rather surprised to find on my return from a foreign business trip without internet access that it had been on the main page during my absence. I would have liked to have had some advance warning so that I could have reviewed it first even if I wasn't able to see it on the main page on its chosen day. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 16:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

While it is not a formal rule, if an article is nominated by someone who is not a major contributor, during the course of discussion, that question tends to be asked. For the most part, though, nominators use articles that they have played a significant part in. For articles that do not come through TFA/R, you might want to talk to Raul.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:38, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Its happened again! Battle of Lissa is another of mine that I had no idea was coming up on the main page before it appeared. Who nominated this - I can't find any discussion about it anywhere? I assume that this won't prejudice it being nominated again for the 200th anniversary next year?--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:48, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid it will. A page can only be TFA once in its lifetime. Sorry, Matthewedwards :  Chat  17:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

TFA Minnie Pwerle

The summary of this TFA, due to go up in 4½ hours is disputed at WP:ERRORS. The fathers of this woman's children are apparently irrelevent to her late (and successful) career of painting on canvass that is the subject of the article. Does anyone actually read these things before they go up? Physchim62 (talk) 19:29, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

If it comes through TFA/R, I at least skim it and look for obvious problems (copyvios are usually not obvious). However, this did not come through TFA/R.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:03, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Today's FAs and automatic taxoboxes

There is an editor updating wikipedia taxoboxes to automatic taxoboxes. The editor will make multiple changes in the template at one time. The coding development is not going well, and I have had to revert a number of automatic taxoboxes in FAs to manual taxoboxes due to broken templates causing long lines of big red text to appear in the taxoboxes.

If an article is scheduled to go on the main page, it should have a fixed, not an automatic taxobox. See this also. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Like a Rolling Stone photo

Would this photo be alright for the January 8 TFA? If so, could it be added? Many thanks, - I.M.S. (talk) 21:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Anyone? It'd be nice to have a photo - would it be O.K. to add it? - I.M.S. (talk) 04:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment a policy page

[11] I did find some information here, but I started the discussion there. --Kleopatra (talk) 15:09, 12 January 2011 (UTC)