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Eagles, lots of it

I noticed that all the articles in the TFA queue for February 17–20 involve eagles in one way or another. I understand each subject matter is different, but one might experience some eagle fatigue after four straight days. Is this a bizarre coincidence or did I miss a special event? —Arsonal (talk + contribs)— 13:23, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

HMS Eagle has a centennial on 20th Feb, and as there were a few clear days before that with nothing nominated or obviously date-relevant, I did a bit of scheduling by word association, for a bit of fun. As the only connecting factor between the articles (a vintage British comic, an Asian/Australian bird, an American coin, and a British warship) is the word "Eagle" in the title, I doubt that there's going to be a real eagle fatigue. If anyone notices, hopefully they will appreciate the range of articles that our editors can produce. BencherliteTalk 14:09, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
You mean, if anyone's eagle-eyed enough? I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what done. GRAPPLE X 14:11, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
You mean us? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:20, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Picture of the day/February 2013 is also getting in on the act, some days more blatantly than others... BencherliteTalk 14:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Clever. I like this elaborate plot. —Arsonal (talk + contribs)— 14:37, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
For the next series, they could be preceded by Phallus indusiatus, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Just a reminder to nominators and commentators to check the article for issues such as deadlinks and {{fact}} tags. When I checked last night, too many of the nominations had issues and the regulars will no doubt remember the complaints that are made here, at Talk:Main Page and elsewhere when an article appears as the TFA with maintenance issues. I'm quite happy to spend half an hour or more fixing deadlinks on an FA that I want to run, but I don't see why I should be doing it for articles nominated here too. Thank you to those who have already responded to my promptings! BencherliteTalk 13:00, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the loss of the Gramophone site as a source for Messiah, I trust that Tim will handle it expertly, as for the ENO, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:18, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

TFAs and other forthcoming sections of the main page

Playing around with "whatlinkshere", I discovered User:Rjd0060/DAL, which compares the forthcoming TFAs and "On this day"s side by side. That's inspired me to create User:Bencherlite/TFA notepad/TFAs and POTDs to do likewise for TFA and POTD. You may find either or both pages of interest. If there appears to be too much of an unintentional overlap between the TFA and the POTD, feel free to drop me and Crisco 1492 (talk · contribs) a line. Thanks, BencherliteTalk 19:24, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Points on the pending template

The hidden comments on the pending template only display if you put in a points total. The template becomes less useful if people leave the points blank, because then you have to go into edit mode to see why someone thinks that the date is a good one for the article. Thanks, BencherliteTalk 23:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the math, - but I still don't see how the points show WHY I believe that date is good, that is more complicated than an addition, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:30, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
Gerda, try hovering your cursor over one of the point totals in the template - it should show the hidden commentary on why the date is good. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, learning, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Nominations please...

It would be useful to have some more nominations now, particularly for non-specific dates. I appear to be the only one of the TFA people currently editing, and I've just had a week away through a combination of working away from home, family commitments, and a broken broadband connection. I'm just about to have another week with little chance to edit WP, I think, for the same reasons. All help appreciated! Thanks, BencherliteTalk 20:37, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Welcome back, good decision for 25 March! - Does "all help" mean we can nominate more than one? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:33, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I have Cardus nominated, can't add here, but some for any day are prepared in WP:QAI/TFA, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:52, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Heh, I'm thinking he means more people being involved... Actually after Bench kindly picked John Francis Jackson a little while back, I've been considering putting one or two more of "my" articles up, so I'll see what I can do to assist there... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I've been wanting to see the Muhammad al-Durrah incident as a TFA for awhile now, but fear it may be too contentious. I put the suggestion on the talk page, with no feedback so far. Any thoughts?--Chimino (talk) 14:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Have you discussed it with SlimVirgin, the principal editor?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:05, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks; I did so and SV feels it is too contentious for the front page, along with other work which may have to be done to get it ready. I'll choose something else.--Chimino (talk) 03:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you all for your help. BencherliteTalk 15:33, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me FA land needs a top down restructuring.PumpkinSky talk 13:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Temporary increase to 4 non-specific date nominations to see what happens

Pressure of work, family commitments, Easter holidays and a broken broadband connection at home for a while meant that advance selection of TFAs dropped to just a few days over Easter, which is not ideal I know. To try and help me get back up to the level I'd like to maintain on your behalf (around a fortnight, I think), I've temporarily increased the number of non-specific date slots to four (from two). Hopefully 14 slots on the page will give nominators plenty of places to put suggested articles. If these extra couple of slots aren't regularly used, though, there'll be no point in keeping them and we can return to two. So - use 'em or lose 'em! Thanks to those who have been keeping the place ticking over. BencherliteTalk 10:28, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

April Fools 2013

Love the ? in place of the normal text. Can't wait until 2014. Well played, well played. :) davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Props to User:Crisco 1492 for writing it as well. :-) [natit citsejam] [klat] dE 17:48, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Streamline rules

A while ago, we discussed to lift the restriction that a user can have only one nomination at a time. I think it would be a good idea. I like to nominate for others, and I like to do so as long in advance as possible, for a longer discussion. I could prepare one or two additional suggestions without a specific date, if I didn't have to follow the rule, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:57, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe better would be to try to shake the trees a bit - try asking around at various projects whether they have anything ready for TFA or anything they'd like to run. I'm not any good at formatting and writing blurbs, but off the top of my head can think of Interstate 70 in Colorado as a potential highway page (but it does have a cn tag), maybe a coin article for April 15 (income tax day in the US), a mushroom (hasn't it been awhile since we had a mushroom?). Will try to think of a few more. I'll ping Wehwalt to ask about a coin for the 15th (struck because the 15th is scheduled) and maybe Rschen will be interested about the highway. I'll try to think of a few more. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:38, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
There had been concerns about too many coins, so I wasn't planning to nom any until July.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:53, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Struck anyway (no pun intended) but had I been more involved and thinking better would have thought of it earlier. I think we could have gotten away with a money article on April 15th but it's something to keep in mind for next year. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:00, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I'll take note of that, and see if I can find anything interesting. There are a few coin anniversaries next year (multiples of 25 that is) but I haven't worked on them yet. Three cent nickel piece, Panama Pacific Exposition commemoratives, I'll see what I can do.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

More participation would be great! - A mushroom was scheduled yesterday. - I think the rule is not needed, can we try without it? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:13, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

More participation≠more nominations from the same people. Imzadi 1979 → 06:18, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
That's what I tried to say, sorry if it was not clear. - Please note that I nominate for different people, not for myself, people who are gone or not interested to do it. Please also note that I said "would be great", it's not there yet, the delegate needs help now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
If you want more participation, you need to encourage more people to nominate, not less. Removing the one nomination at a time rule will allow a smaller group of people to dominate the nominations by filling all of the available slots. That's not more participation, that's less. Imzadi 1979 → 06:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I still was not clear ;) - Finding those more people will take time, the delegate expressed the wish for more nominations now. - We could try if what you fear would happen, - I don't think so, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:09, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
You're not hearing what I'm saying: more nominations by the same people doesn't equate to more participation overall. Your goal (more participation) and your proposal (more nominations by the same people) are contradictory. Imzadi 1979 → 07:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
My goal is: fewer restrictions (which I trust would be more inviting to more people). Please don't tell me what my goal is ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Yet you said, and I quote, "More participation would be great!". So if that's not your goal... why did you say that? Imzadi 1979 → 08:22, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Since you asked: I suggested (again) to lift restrictions, the discussion proceeded to the topic "more participation", I said I support that - should I have added "also"? - I dream of less clutter on the nomination page and think that the "one-nom-at-a-time"-rule makes no sense among reasonable people who would understand not to crowd the slots, - try to treat editors as such, not as a possible danger, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:52, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Imzadi, I appreciate the point you are trying to make, but do you have any thoughts as to steps that could be taken to increase the number of nominators? Fine to keep saying what's needed, but concrete proposals would be helpful to achieve that aim. - SchroCat (talk) 11:01, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Freedom of speech request for World Press Freedom Day

WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech related thread at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Freedom_of_speech#World_Press_Freedom_Day.

WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech would like to request United States v. The Progressive for scheduling on either 2 May 2013 or 4 May 2013 in honor of World Press Freedom Day.

We see there's already a request for something else for 3 May 2013, thus requesting one of the adjacent days.

Thank you for your time and consideration, — Cirt (talk) 04:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

30 days or 20 days??

I'm finding the instructions ambiguous. The introduction states "Requests must be for dates within the next 30 days that have not yet been scheduled." However, the nomination instructions go on to state "Accordingly, you must wait until there are 20 days or fewer before nominating such an article, to avoid tying up a slot for a long period of time, and to allow other articles their chance." Any chance of clarifying exactly what these two time periods are referring to? Betty Logan (talk) 20:18, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The 20 days is for articles with 5 or more points, as mentioned in the previous sentence. If an article has 4 or less points, you can nominate it up to 30 days before you want it to run. If an article has 5 or more points, you have to wait until it is 20 or less days before you want the article to run. The dates for when articles can be nominated are also listed at the top of the summary chart. Calathan (talk) 21:18, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
If you ask me, that's another item where simpler instructions might be helpful. See above, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:51, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
It's my fault, I'm just tired and for some reason I just didn't make the mental connection between "History shows that articles with five or more points are almost never replaced" and "Accordingly, you must wait until there are 20 days or fewer before nominating such an article". Anyway thanks for the clarity Calathan. Betty Logan (talk) 22:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Alcohol laws of New Jersey

Whatever happened to this nomination? Bearian (talk) 15:45, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

[1] 89.242.91.62 (talk) 16:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Disputed nomination

For May 25 I was initially about to nominate Heinrich Bär as TFA, but the slot has been filled already. :( I understand from the criteria that this article has around 8 points. (6 for being a centennial anniversary of his birthday and 2 for being promoted over two years ago). What should I do for this situation? Should I contact the May Revolution nominator or do something like that? Minima© (talk) 04:53, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

You could nominate an alternative. We had two noms for 3 April, it was solved, one appeared 2 April. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:36, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
OK. I have done an alternative nomination request for the same date. I hope I've done it right, as this is my first TFA request. Minima© (talk) 12:00, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
The May Revolution has an associated national day on May 25, so it has to be that day. If Bar takes priority for being a centennial, I would prefer to decline my nomination and leave it for next year's May 25. Cambalachero (talk) 12:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Today's TFA selected without informing the main editor, and posted with a potentially non-free image

While I'm always pleased to see an article I've developed on the main page, I'm disappointed that I wasn't notified that Operation Teardrop was the pick for today, and didn't have the opportunity to provide input into the blurb. Moreover, it's disappointing that a photo which isn't in the article was used for the blurb, especially as this can't be verified as PD - its source link is dead, and the live page at http://www.navsource.org/archives/06/136.htm doesn't actually confirm that this is a US Navy image as claimed. The images hosted by Navsource are a mix of PD US government and non-free privately created images, and it's not possible to tell which is which here (I imagine that it's a US Government image given that it's an aerial photo, but there's no way of knowing). While it's true that the photos in the article are somewhat underwealming and don't look great on the main page, they're there because they were the best of the disappointing PD options I've been able to source while working on the article. Nick-D (talk) 08:48, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Agree with Nick on this. What happened to the bot? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:25, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't know why UcuchaBot (talk · contribs) didn't notify the principal author(s) at the same time as adding the |maindate= to the article's talk page. I apologise, Nick, for not noticing that you didn't know about it. As for how this happened in the more general sense, Wikipedia time has been short for me recently, TFA/R hasn't been very helpful of late in producing blurbs I can use – unspecific date nominations of a video game and bird that are poorly timed, other blurbs that are too short e.g. Lady Grange – and I wanted an interesting WW2 article for VE Day, hence Teardrop. As for the image, I know it wasn't in the article but none of the images actually in the article seemed workable and I thought it was usable. Clearly I got that wrong! BencherliteTalk 15:35, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
    • A quick check shows that the bot hasn't told the FAC nominator of tomorrow's TFA either. I've left a message for the author and will drop a note on Ucucha's talk page. BencherliteTalk 15:47, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
      • As noted on my talk page, accidents happen, and this was a good choice in my biased opinion (the 60,000 page views are better than what the Military History of Australia in World War II TFA managed a few weeks ago). Nick-D (talk) 08:46, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TFA Protector Bot

This may interest some of you. BencherliteTalk 18:40, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

"Director" discussion

There appears to have been a discussion two archives (and two months) ago on the status of the FAD, which finished without apparent conclusion. Did this discussion move elsewhere in the maze of twisty project pages, all alike? Or does the matter simply slumber on? 84.203.43.181 (talk) 22:15, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I am unaware of the discussion continuing elsewhere. BencherliteTalk 11:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

27 May 2013 — any chance this article could run on that date? Ideally with a picture of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.?

It will have been 84 years since the 27 May 1929 decision in United States v. Schwimmer where U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote his dissent — the quotation from which became the title of this book.

I don't see anything else scheduled or requested for 27 May.

Not sure about how many specific-date-request-slots are still open, so just posting a query here about it.

I'll understand either way, no problems, just thought it was worth a try. :)

Thank you for your consideration, — Cirt (talk) 04:36, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

It would be less than a month since the last US freedom of speech TFA, United States v. The Progressive on 2nd May, which seems rather too close in time to me. But feel free to put up a proposed blurb overleaf for discussion. BencherliteTalk 11:01, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 Done. Note: Please note that United States v. The Progressive was about nuclear weapon information — and this article is different in that it is more a generalist topic about freedom of speech, itself, which historically has been underrepresented on the Main Page. Thank you for your consideration, — Cirt (talk) 11:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Nonspecific noms

Well Bencher, I (and others, apparently) have given it the old college try, but there seems to be a major roadblock in assisting you with non-specifically dated nominations....lack of a diversity of subject matter. Most articles which haven't already appeared on the main page appear to fall into about a dozen or so categories which continually run, and the few which buck the trend were brought to featured status by editors who throw a fit if they appear on the main page. Can't say we haven't tried...--Chimino (talk) 13:09, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

  • I could add there but I already broke the rule of one nom at a time by reviving Crane who got time-critical once scheduling advanced yesterday, - thank you for that, Bencherlite. - Drop that rule, then I can help more ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:24, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC on TFA images

Readers of this talk page may be interested in a discussion that I've started at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#Request for comment - images in TFA blurbs. All views welcome. BencherliteTalk 16:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Pending requests

I've increased the period within which potential nominations can be added to the "/pending" subpage from 90 days to 6 months, to see what happens... BencherliteTalk 13:52, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

seen and added, thank you, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:56, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Nomination archives?

A genuine question of curiosity - are the nomination discussions/votes archived anywhere? I've checked just about everywhere I can think of (FAR, Monthly queues, Article talk) but can't find any links to an archive of these discussions. Cheers. OrganicsLRO 10:56, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

No, they're not archived. This page was running long before I started on Wikipedia, although the format has changed over the years, and I guess nobody particularly saw the need for an archive, probably because most of the decisions based on discussions here are terribly uncontroversial and can be found, if necessary, by hunting through the page history. The exception: I made an archive of the discussions for one nomination (Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo) because it was generating significant discussion and it was best, I thought, to have everything in one place. BencherliteTalk 11:20, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Alright, makes sense, thanks for the reply. OrganicsLRO 12:46, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Accidental click

Sorry I was in the middle of researching a new TFA nomination possibility and made an accidental rollback click. (accidental click followed by undo self followed by New TFA nomination)

My apologies, — Cirt (talk) 20:20, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

New TFA nomination

  1. I've added a new TFA nomination see diff.
  2. Can someone help me with the "points" analysis?
  3. There's like over 9,000 rules to follow when adding new TFA nominations, I want to get more active not just in the commenting but also in the nomination process, but there's like tons of forms you have to fill out in triplicate first -- it gets kind of confusing!

Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 20:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Is this a record?

I'm really struck by (and grateful for) the huge amount of support that my nomination of History of Gibraltar has received, though I recognise that some of it is probably prompted by the extreme nature of the handful of opposing views. I was idly wondering if 29 support votes is some kind of record. I don't recall seeing any nomination getting that many votes, for or against, before. Anyone know the answer? Prioryman (talk) 22:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't remember any greater number. That being said, we have had other "all hands on deck" votes before. But I don't recall any in particular with so many votes.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:41, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Another discussion of interest - TFA diversity

Wikipedia talk:TFA#New guideline: Home page diversity may interest some of you. BencherliteTalk 11:49, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

How feasible would it be...

To nominate Early life of Joseph Smith again? I know it was nominated before, but User: Raul654 has not edited in a while so I can't ask him like the instructions state. June 27th is the anniversary of his death. jj (talk) 14:05, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

In Raul's absence, decisions like that would fall to me. The bar for articles running again as TFA is deliberately set very high, and we already have sufficient articles waiting their turn to fill TFA for the next 31⁄2 years even if no more articles were promoted. I do not see that article as having sufficiently exceptional reasons to run again - the 169th anniversary of his death is not enough. BencherliteTalk 05:37, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
Since Raul's pretty much left, now what happens should we need new delegates? --Rschen7754 05:57, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
Bencherlite does an excellent job, we can simply help with nominations and comments, without "official" functions that obviously don't mean anything, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:43, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
I know, and I'm not saying that he's doing a bad job, but what if something happened to him? --Rschen7754 09:46, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
It's a fair point, and I think there does need to be a fresh look at the process, as I suggested a few months ago. Raul has clearly gone for good so it makes no sense to keep things in the state of abeyance that exists at the moment. Prioryman (talk) 22:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
This would seem to make a lot of sense, on the face of it. The old system was arbitrary, built around rule by decree, and (at best and at most) after-the-fact "endorsement". You'd think that it would have been reviewed long since, much less after the person doing said ruling by decree is completely AWOL. But this is Wikipedia, so obviously instead Raul is still propped up exanimate on his horse and sent forth to do battle against the forces of "needlessly" transparent process. I asked about this a month ago, and I was told there was no current discussion about this. Unless we're going to have it run for all time on the basis of apostolic succession, with 654's delegates handing on to his granddelegates, then his greatgranddelegates, some sort of system with prior community input is at some point going to have to be devised and agreed on. Better to do that in a leisurely manner while things are running smoothly, rather than waiting unless drama and crisis force it to happen in a disorderly fashion. 84.203.33.162 (talk) 00:00, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

London Necropolis Company

I have started a discussion about the mysterious "legal issues" surrounding this nomination at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Legal issues with London Necropolis Company?. Please keep discussion there. Thryduulf (talk) 15:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Nomination limits

OK, as the page has almost ground to a halt recently (despite – or perhaps because of, who knows? – the record participation in the Gibraltar nomination), I'm removing the limit of one nomination per person at a time, to see what happens. If people end up not being able to get their nominations on the page because others are flooding it, we'll see whether a limit of some sort is necessary. Don't forget, if you're nominating "someone else's" FA, to let them know about it; if they're inactive, a message to recent editors and / or the article talk page would be useful. Thanks, BencherliteTalk 16:22, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the 30-day limit future horizon could be extended? :P — Cirt (talk) 16:25, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't really see the point in having nominations sitting for longer periods on this page. If this page can provide a regular turnover of dated and undated nominations, that helps scheduling. At present (20th June), nominations can be made for dates up to 8th August, seven weeks away. After that, there's the /pending subpage, and I do keep an eye on that... BencherliteTalk 09:48, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Okay, sounds good! :) — Cirt (talk) 10:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Missed this, too much Kafka, - great! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:50, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Should not be a limit of 5 specific date noms either. PumpkinSky talk 23:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
The limit is still 10, as it has been since (I think) August 2012. BencherliteTalk 23:21, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

RFCs on FA changes

I suspect there will be other versions posted.PumpkinSky talk 13:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

"Widely covered"

Topics are considered widely covered if they have 20 or more equivalent articles in other-language Wikipedias

When talking about a bridge, does this statement refer to bridges in general or that an article on the particular bridge must exist in 20 Wikipedias? Simply south...... fighting ovens for just 7 years 22:29, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The specific bridge; normally this point is checked by counting the number of interwikilinks that appear o the left side of the article. Imzadi 1979 → 00:55, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that is true. At one point, the bonus point was for, I believe, of an educational subject that might be included in a 12-year-old's schoolwork. This led to endless disputes, and after hearing suggestions from editors, Raul chose that.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:46, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Simply south...... fighting ovens for just 7 years 10:48, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
  • It really doesn't matter as with ten slots, plus the non-specific ones, we rarely bump an article. It's really only relevant for purposes of tie breaking for a single date, and people have been much more reasonable about these things with Bencherlite running things than before. A review of the points system is overdue, but I don't know if that should be undertaken under present circumstances. I personally think there should be credit for undertaking articles which go to the non-English speaking world, but do we really want to make the rules even more complex?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:06, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
  • We started several times to simplify, but as it seems of no consequences anyway we can as well play the point game. The next rule I would like to see changed is the extra complication about a different time ahead ... if so-and-so many points, - it could easily be the same time (a month or whatever from the last scheduled day) independent of points, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
The bridge is now live although well over the 1200 characters. Simply south...... fighting ovens for just 7 years 11:25, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

I hope nobody minds but I reworded the note to say:

Articles are considered widely covered if 20 or more versions are in other-language Wikipedias

Simply south...... fighting ovens for just 7 years 20:08, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

  • That could be interpreted as "20 versions per Wikipedia". How's "Articles are considered widely covered if a version exists in 20 or more other Wikipedias."? (Note that I removed "other-language, as Simple English is still technically the same language). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Roger Waters

I've taken this off the nominations page and added it to the /pending page (with this diff for reference). The page takes nominations for the next 30 unscheduled days, and Waters was for about the 45th unscheduled day. Possibilities after 30 days can go on the /pending page as a note to me and others. If the nominations page gets used for suggestions that are more than 30 unscheduled days ahead, there is a risk that the page looks inactive/stagnant and goes to sleep. I think that experience shows that this page works best with a steady flow of nominations coming on and off, rather than having nominations that stick around for a long time - this was part of the problem with the old nominations procedure for TFLs, for example. BencherliteTalk 13:48, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Holiday

Right-ho, folks, I'm off for a spot for summer holidays tomorrow. I will do my best to keep away from Wikipedia while I'm enjoying myself in Germany (Lüneburg and thereabouts, since you ask). I've scheduled until 13th August, which is over a week after my return, and hopefully there won't be any problems. If there are, I'm sure the regulars here can sort things out, with the assistance of Nikkimaria if necessary. (NM has agreed to provide a bit of FA* delegate backup here in my absence, but hopefully she won't need to push the panic button and break open the locked cabinet at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/emergency!). Many thanks to all those who contribute here, as ever. See you in August. BencherliteTalk 09:42, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I hope you have a lovely time! :) — Cirt (talk) 18:14, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Enjoy your vacation. - I suggested a song for any date, not realising that our very active delegate had scheduled one at almost the same time. If you want to nominate an article and "my song" is in your way, please feel free to replace it, with just a notification to me, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:08, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

What's the strategy?

So my request for Sholay was denied because a similar article, a film, had been scheduled for a few days prior (so within 3 months), although I was unaware of that. Does this mean I have to wait 3 months now before requesting again. This particular date was an anniversary date, where 3 months on it will not be, so there will be fewer points, like almost none. What is the minimum number of points needed? Will any other film within the 3 month window that has more points take priority? Basically is there any hope of this article ever being featured? BollyJeff | talk 17:20, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

You don't have to wait three months. The points system imposes penalties for running similar articles too close together, but no penalty for gaps of between 1 and 3 months (for example). However, there is another way. Many (sometimes most) articles are directly selected by me without nomination at WP:TFAR. If you're happy for me to select the article whenever I think we could do with a film article running on the main page, just say so. BencherliteTalk 16:59, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Please do, as long as I am notified of the date. I don't want to miss it :) Thanks, BollyJeff | talk 17:08, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Don't worry, you won't miss it! BencherliteTalk 17:10, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Main image rules

As Whaam! progresses through its FAC run, I am pondering it TFA potential for its 50th anniversary on September 28. I have cropped a text balloon under the claim of pd-ineligible for use as a main image. I am wondering however, if it is permissible to have someone just create a .jpg, .svg or .png that contains just the characters WHAAM!. Cropping the same letters from the work would include too much original graphics to be pd-ineligible, but just the lettering on a white background would probably be O.K. unless it has to be content actually in the article. Thoughts?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:36, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

I think the lettering just as you describe with just the characters would be too simple and therefore be just fine for copyright ineligible and public domain. — Cirt (talk) 18:13, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
See PD-text over on commons. PumpkinSky talk 12:30, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation

When an article has a pronunciation indicator in the lead's first sentence, as in the case of Willamette River, is it common practice to include that in the TFA blurb? I need to know before the article is set to appear as TFA for September 1. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:47, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

No, it isn't. BencherliteTalk 07:51, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Istanbul and the 2020 Olympics

Just a note to self and to others that when the host city is announced on 7th September, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 8, 2013 will need to be edited by an admin to tidy it up, whoever wins. I've left some hidden comments as to what needs to be removed in case it isn't obvious. If Istanbul wins, then the "recently featured" list onf Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 9, 2013, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 10, 2013 and Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 11, 2013 will need to be changed as well (although this is less urgent). If Istanbul wins, I will reschedule the spare article for later in September and update the article history / move protection at that time.

The chances are that I won't be around to do this as it's a weekend and my chances to slip away from the family to get to a computer are limited! So, admins, feel free to make the adjustments without waiting for me; non-admins, feel free to flag down a passing admin and point them here to see what needs to be done (or you could pass RFA between now and then to do it yourself - your choice...). Thanks, BencherliteTalk 20:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

A public nod of thanks to Tariqabjotu for fixing this. BencherliteTalk 17:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Proportion of TFAs selected through this page

PumpkinSky recently asked me how many TFAs are chosen through nominations here compared to ones that I choose myself. An interesting question, and not a stat I've been keeping records about. So I looked at the TFAs for March, April and May (no particular reason why I chose those three months, save for the fact that I was trying to avoid July and August where I had done a lot of scheduling before going on holiday). If I've gone through the page history correctly, then 45 of the days were scheduled after nominations at TFAR (12 for no specific date, 33 for specific dates) and 47 were ones that I chose myself. BencherliteTalk 23:15, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Interesting and thanks for putting this together. PumpkinSky talk 23:27, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Between 2nd December 2012 (the first TFA that I scheduled) and 15th September 2013 (the last date currently scheduled, and excluding at present the "either/or" Istanbul TFA on 8th September) by my reckoning 37 non-specific date nominations have run (13% of the total), 82 date-specific nominations (28.5%), and the balance of 168 (58.5%) I selected myself. The counts may be slightly out if I've missed an article here or there, and I may not have always been consistent about how I've treated a nomination that didn't succeed at the time but which I later plucked from the page history, but the general picture is there or thereabouts, I think. BencherliteTalk 03:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Two minor adjustments to procedure, hopefully to decomplicate matters slightly

  1. Now that this page has 10 date-specific slots, the pressure on slots is not as much as it used to be in the days when there were only 5. Until now, there has been a rule that nominations with 5 or more points had to wait a bit longer before being eligible for nomination. I have decided that this is an unnecessary complication. This summer, for example, Roger Waters was nominated too early according to this subrule, so I removed it, and it wasn't readded but I ended up rescuing the nomination anyway; and another article was nominated with a points calculation that was too low which meant that technically it was too early, but I didn't remove it because it wasn't going to be long until it was in time and there were no issues of competition for slots. Frankly, the rule was getting to be more trouble than it was worth, so I have removed it. Any article can be nominated for any day in the next 30 unscheduled days, regardless of points.
  2. I have now extended the period for entering articles on the "pending" template to one year. Some people will have dates in mind a long time in advance and if the "pending" template notes that there is an aspiration to have X appear on a particular date within 12 months, it might at least make me check first before picking! To that end I have also add a "contact" field to the pending template, so that I know who has added a particular entry. As ever, use of the /pending template is not compulsory.

Thanks, BencherliteTalk 23:15, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Sept 28: McNeile / Whaam!

Hello everyone, I've just logged on after my usual weekend away to see lots of messages and comments about this issue. I'll have a read-through and see what's happening and what if anything I can suggest or do about it. One thing that has sometimes worked in the past, when two articles are in healthy rivalry for the same date for good reasons, is to shift one of them a day forwards or backwards. Sometimes this works nicely with time zones of interests for the particular articles. I don't know whether this is an option here. Sept 27 is now a free slot, FWIW. BencherliteTalk 12:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Some initial thoughts:
  • Messages to people who have supported one nomination to let them know that there is another nomination for the same date are, I think, a good idea in principle. It may be better in such circumstances to let a neutral person (e.g., but not limited to, me) draw attention back to TFAR in such cases, but I don't want to start getting prescriptive about it.
  • That said, I don't think the wording of TTT's message to those who had commented on the McNeile nomination was inappropriate.
  • However, I don't think we tend to see messages to related Wikiprojects and / or those who have commented at FAC. Such attempts risk looking "pushy" even if that is not the intention. Numbers of supporters for a particular nomination are not the only factor.
  • Both articles were improved to FA standard this year. I'm not immediately sure that I see the benefits of labelling one of the efforts a "TFA drive".
  • I would much rather see discussion based on which would be the most appropriate article for the particular date (and which would be the most appropriate date for the article) than comments based on (for example) the behaviour of a nominator.
  • Both of the main authors of the articles in question have worked very hard to get them to FA standards and they - and all those who helped them along the way with reviews or copyedits or whatever - deserve our thanks and congratulations.
  • What I propose doing is restarting both nominations for the 28th and inviting suggestions for how and when both articles could grace the main page. Imaginative ideas welcome.
Thanks, BencherliteTalk 13:16, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Well, McNeile was a Brit and Whaam! is American, so that's one option. What if... and this is just me being crazy... it's run twelve-twelve-twelve-twelve over two days? Split em both. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Historically, articles have shared space with half-sized blurbs and simultaneous appearance. In this case, if both blurbs were altered to include the date, it would be apparent to the readers that both are celebrating round dates of relevance. I don't think any two hooks have ever shared the TFA main page space that were not related before. I don't read the main page every day, but to my recollection there are only two or three shared TFA dates. I can recall the Obama/McCain date and I think there were two bomb shelters or something one time. I don't know if that is a road we want to go down.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I would welcome a restart on the merits. I continue to prefer the true anniversary, but I continue to think this is a primo page view opportunity hook and if worse came to worse would give it up for a Tuesday down the line. I believe the main page gets the most page views on Monday and Tuesday, which makes me angle for a Tuesday. As much as my reputation has been impared in the last few weeks, I still care about it and I solicited a lot of help over the last 12 weeks under the motivation of a 50th anniversary TFA run (and got nearly 700KB of discussion in response toward improving this article). If anyone has any connections at WP:OTD, putting this picture on the main page at OTD on the 28th and then using the last Tuesday in the exhibition date range (October 22) might be O.K.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:24, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
  • If we are relagated to OTD on 9/28, any date between October 21 and 24 is fine. Maybe the 24th would make the most sense, since then it would celebrate the conclusion of its debut exhibition. However, so as not to conflict with whatever strong date connections might arise, I list this date range.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:28, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
1. Of course you would welcome a restart: you see McNeile lose nine supports, while you lose five six opposes;
2. If you are so happy to see McNeile at OTD, why don't you put Whaam there instead? No? Didn't think so.
3. Don't call me "a poor sport", especially just after I had moved my article out of the way.
4. Don't refer to others as if its some form of conspiracy against you (c.f. "those McNeile people")
Yes, you've managed to piss me off immensely over this - not with your nomination, but with your behaviour before and after it.- SchroCat (talk) 19:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I see two solutions that don't require complicated handling:
  • have one 27 September (which is 28 in parts of the world), the other 28 September
  • have the bio 28 September, birthday of the person, the other any date during the premiere exhibition which opened 28 September and closed 24 October. The day of the opening is not the birthday of the artwork. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:24, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

@Bencherlite, I'll trust you and the community to make the right decision on this without me trying to force my personal opinion on things. If you do go down the route of restarting, could you please leave a neutral note on the talk pages of those who have already commented? Could you also ignore the more pointless suggestions, like OTD? Thanks - SchroCat (talk) 19:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

In the end, as you will see, I plumped for the usual solution in such circumstances, which was in fact suggested by a couple of people - i.e. run one (Whaam!) a day early, and the other on the day. I put McNeile on the actual day partly because it's a genuine birthday and the Whaam! exhibition opening date is not quite the same thing (as has been said by one or more people) and partly because all-in-all McNeile was more favoured for the actual day. Hopefully this unfortunate episode can now be put behind us and TFAR return to its usual happy and co-operative way of working. Thanks (or should that be Thaanks!...?) BencherliteTalk 11:56, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Thaanks, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

November 9

I'd like to offer a second candidate to run for November 9 (Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)) but am unsure how that works with formatting. If someone could offer assistance I'd appreciate it.--Chimino (talk) 15:32, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I took a stab at it; please clean up if need be. Thanks --Chimino (talk) 15:47, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Grace Sherwood will not be re-run

I am not going to run this article for a second time. Rather than let the arguments - and the arguing - rumble on for a couple more weeks until I reach the time for scheduling 31st October, I might as well say what my decision is now. For a TFA to be repeated has always been an exceptional occurrence; Raul did so only extremely infrequently and I have never done so. The reasons in favour of making Grace Sherwood another exception are simply not strong enough, in my view. I am also thinking of the wider picture - every exception to the "only once" rule, as this discussion itself shows, is used in future as precedent for another exception being made. The arguments in favour of this being treated as a unique case seem to be these (in no particular order, and paraphrasing rather than quoting):

  • The current version of the article has not been on the main page. Well, the same can said of (1) 50 or so other former featured articles that appeared on the main page before their demotion that have since been repromoted; (2) many other FAs, particularly older FAs, that have been substantially rewritten without being demoted at WP:FAR. There are also several hundred FFAs that could be repromoted and seek to use a repeated Grace Sherwood as a precedent.
  • The circumstances in which this article was demoted are unique. In fact, Frederick Russell Burnham was also pulled from the main page during its appearance at TFA because of similar concerns and efforts are currently underway to bring Burnham back to FA status.
  • It didn't have 24 hours on the main page. True, but that's just one of those things I'm afraid, and not TFA's fault. I do not think that the more egregious the problem with the article, the more exceptional should be TFA's treatment of it thereafter.
  • Re-running it would enable Wikipedia to put a lot of things behind it. That's not what the TFA slot is for. It is also clear that even nominating this article for reconsideration leads to a lot of discussion - views may vary as to how helpful/friendly/[adjective of your choice] that discussion is - being generated about the surrounding circumstances, including the rights and wrongs of how Rlevse/PumpkinSky was treated. That's not what the TFAR page is for, and the prospect of all the history and circumstances being thrashed out yet again at here and other locations does not appeal to me. I want to avoid any appearance of TFA being used to settle scores, declare victory, show who was right etc - I'm not saying that is what the nomination is after, of course.
  • It would mean a lot to a lot of people. I'm sure it would, but refeaturing any former TFA would mean a lot to various people. If the reasoning is more along the lines of a desire to show a special degree of thanks/appreciation/"welcome back" to PumpkinSky, then repeating a TFA is not the way of doing so, and being jointly responsible for the most-viewed TFA ever (as was also pointed out) isn't a bad way of showing how successfully he has returned!
  • It's been done before. Not for anything like these reasons. Barack Obama was to mark the US election and enable a neutral TFA slot with both candidates represented. Transit of Venus marked an extremely rare astronomical event that no-one alive at the time will see again. Nick Drake was one appearance interrupted by a site-wide blackout; if the 24-hour blackout had been from midnight UTC rather than midday, it wouldn't even be on the list.

I do not think that re-running Grace Sherwood is appropriate both because of its history and because of the bad precedent it would set. I congratulate PumpkinSky, Wehwalt and any others involved in getting this article back to featured status. I remain grateful for all that they do to help at TFAR and elsewhere (and have previously expressed in another forum my support for and faith in PumpkinSky). In future, please discuss exceptional nominations with me first. To do so is not mere box-ticking and form-filling, but a desire to minimise drama. BencherliteTalk 11:33, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, for those of us who were hoping for reform of TFA in a post-Raul age, we are quite disappointed. The overwhelming consensus of the community was that this was a unique situation and the article was suitable for TFA in all respects. The first three arguments are, actually, decent ones and perfectly adequate, taken as a combined group. The only people in opposition were "the usual suspects" in the whole previous mess. Frankly, "Raul did so..." is not your best argument and does not give the community a lot of hope. Just saying. Montanabw(talk) 16:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Ditto. It would be regrettable if Bencherlite were to consider it his place to act in an autocratic fashion. I was somewhat concerned about the recent unilateral change to TFA rules. My understanding of the RfC is that we ended the "god-king" status of the person in charge, so it should have been proposed to, not imposed on, the community. And the block of TonyTheTiger left me scratching my head somewhat not because of its merits, since a block was within administrative discretion, but because we have no one to act in case of conflicts of interest (the community ruled quite clearly last August that Raul, and presumably his successors, are very much subject to normal conflict of interest) and blocking like that could set up a situation where the community has to make a decision. Though Tony has not pressed the issue, that was not the best course of action with other administrators available and aware of the situation. And in the present situation going against community consensus is ill-advised for one who holds office by virtue of the fact that the further RfCs recommended in the close (I imagine there should now be one for each process) have not yet taken place.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:51, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Fooey! I took no part in the previous rumpus but Bencherlite is clearly correct. There is more than one set of "usual suspects" here, is there not? Johnbod (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
This simply confirms what I saw starting before this TFAR request was even posted--that Bencher has become a clone for Raul's FA dictatorship. Twice months ago when his alleged assistants were obviously defunct I suggested he find assistants but of course I was ignored. Bencher has clearly ignored the overwhelming consensus of the community here; so much for post-Raul reform and so much for wiki being a consensus. Nothing of substance has improved in TFA land. Must be nice to be lord so much power over the wiki minions, eh Bencher? Your arguments don't wash at all Bencher. You know damn well this is a very unique case. May God have mercy on your soul and what you're doing to wiki, because one day karma will come your way and you'll remember this atrocious decision. You don't support me one bit, who are you trying to kid? Power has corrupted you and soon it will totally consume you. You should be ashamed of yourself but I'm sure you're not. PumpkinSky talk 17:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
It's obvious that this meant more to people then the average bear. I tried to say as much in my statements directed to the nomination.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
The usual suspects are in many cases those who worked on the article before, and now again waded back in and reworked it. PumpkinSky despite all that has been leveled at him, with tenacity and the best positive spirit, worked with others editors to improve an article that had been removed becasue it had probelms. The article was removed; it didn't run as a regular article does. This is a community of people working together. I'm sorry the human part of this discussion was ignored. If the aspects of what collaboration is on a collaborative project are ignored, Wikipedia can't function and will eventually fail as a collblartive project. It has to. A community of editors rewrote this article, and a community spoke in this discussion. There is far more power and it takes strength to handle a community, to direct according to community agreement, and to monitor the community and how it is moving and flowing, than to override that community with the personal. I think a mistake was made here which impacts on multiple levels. Perhaps the decision could be reconsidered?(olive (talk) 18:43, 30 September 2013 (UTC))

I was not involved in any way with the issues surrounding the former Grace Sherwood article, and have had little connection with the current version, though I did support its recent restoration of FA status. I don't really want to add anything here other than to express complete disagreement with the statement, above, that "nothing of substance has improved in TFA land". Utter rubbish: everything has improved beyond measure. I remember the days not long ago of one hours' notice before a main page appearance (sometimes not even that), of hastily-written blurbs full of errors, of absentee or non-communicating delegates...the list goes on. None of that applies today. Bencherlite runs a tidy, efficient system that gives principal editors all the time they need to get their nominations into shape. He is courteous and accessible. No one does a job like that, let alone do it conscientiously and well, from a desire for power. PumpkinSky, I understand your disappointment, but you need to modify your outbursts if you want to be taken seriously. You are entitled to point out that many more editors supported the TFA nomination than opposed it, but in making a decision on any particular issue, Bencherlite should not immediately yield to the loudest clamour of voices. He is entitled to excercise judgement in doing what he believes is in the best interests of the WP project as a whole, and even when we don't agree with his decisions, we should respect that. Brianboulton (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

You don't understand squat. You haven't been in my shoes the last three years. And if an article is TFA for one minute does that count as "having been TFA". Ha! I'm sure you'd feel different if you and one of "your" FAs were in this boat. PumpkinSky talk 16:08, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I support that Bencherlite's ruling of TFA has so far been good, as described. However, I am surprised that a strong vote (13:2) for running the article is termed "loudest clamour of voices", while a vote of 10:2 against an infobox on Talk:The Rite of Spring was termed an "overwhelming vote". I am interested to eventually find out what "consensus" means here. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:32, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for bringing infobox vitriol into this, Gerda, as if it wasn't too dramatic already. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:34, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't know what vitriol is, and I certainly have a problem to understand what consensus is, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:03, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Cruel and bitter. There is no need to conflate infoboxes with this completely unrelated issue. Thanks, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:22, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Brian on this. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 15:04, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Be all that as it may, before Raul added malice to inactivity with his "block party", he stated that he ran the FA processes, among other things, to encourage and satisfy (I may be misremembering the exact phrasing) those who contributed to them. I find that to be among a useful set of goals.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:13, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict - I started this an hour or more ago then got side-tracked by a couple of urgent work emails). I knew that there would be some who disagreed with my decision. I am glad that there are at least a few people who think that I'm acting with the best intentions of Wikipedia at heart and some who think that I'm generally doing a good-enough job at TFA. I didn't take the decision lightly and I don't think I deserve the personal criticism from PumpkinSky (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?). As for a couple of the other unrelated matters raised by Wehwalt, I am replying to them on his talk page rather than here. BencherliteTalk 15:24, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

And what about Gerda's question? Or is that going to be conveniently ignored? The mere fact that you felt it ok to ignore such an overwhelming consenses..... This is one of the many reasons you shouldn't be doing this job alone, but I'm sure you'll ignore that issue too. PumpkinSky talk 16:02, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Running TFA is a big job and it would be wise to consider having a team rather than a single individual at the helm. But that's a different issue. I'm rather curious, Bencher, is your view that Grace shall NEVER run as TFA ever again ever ever ever, or would you be open to a re-nom on or after Nov 1, 2013 for Halloween 2014, (per your "one year" rule above) so we have 364 days to argue about it and reach some sort of more overwhelming consensus by NEXT Halloween? Montanabw(talk) 18:06, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
13-2 would not even be a question anywhere else on wiki; only in FA Dictatorship land is it no good. PumpkinSky talk 18:16, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
One more BIG question, if Grace has truly "been on the main page", why isn't it listed here: [[2]]?????? Enquiring minds want to know. PumpkinSky talk 20:51, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Because of this edit - that's the subpage that was transcluded to the main page on 31st October 2010, so obviously when Tropical Storm Chantal was run instead of Grace Sherwood, the subpage had to be changed. BencherliteTalk 21:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

@PumpkinSky: I hadn't realised that Gerda's comment was directed at me, as it picked up on a phrase used by someone else here and on a phrase used by someone else in a discussion elsewhere in which I was not involved. But to address that and your comments about 13-2 etc, the starting point for me is the principle that FAs only run at TFA once. That's a principle that, I think, has served everyone well over the years because it helps to ensure (as best we can) that most new articles coming through FAC stand a chance of getting on the main page within a reasonable time. There are about 3,500 FAs that have appeared on the main page already and "only" about 1,330 that are still waiting - in other words, if former TFAs were let back into play, fresh TFAs would have to wait even longer then many already do. As it was, Representative peer took over 9 years to make it to TFA and there are still over 50 articles from 2006 and earlier that still have their FA star but have yet to be used on the main page. So any exception to the "once and only once" rule has to be based, I think, on very, very strong arguments. The personal satisfaction that you and some others would get from seeing Grace Sherwood on the main page once again is not an exceptional reason. As I tried to explain above, re-running Grace Sherwood would open the door very quickly to other people wanting their articles to run again, and that's not fair on all those authors who are still waiting patiently for an article to appear once.

@Montanabw, I don't like answering a question phrased as never again ever ever ever, because quite clearly you and I are not going to be here for ever ever ever. However, while the principle of "once and only once" remains, I don't see at present why my answer would be any different next year. A small debate here with a handful of participants is not enough to force a change in such a fundamental and well-established principle of TFA, anymore than if a handful of people expressed support for a GA or A-class article running as TFA to mark a particular event. "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale", as one policy puts it. If the principle is changed then clearly everything is up for grabs and the world of TFA and TFAR would be very different, not (I happen to think) for the better. But such a major change would require, I think, a full community-wide debate in a well-structured, well-advertised and neutrally worded RFC. I would not have thought that it would be wise even to think about such things while passions are high. Opinions may also vary as to whether Grace Sherwood should be the flagship for such a change, given the history behind it, but that's not for me to decide at the end of the day.

I hope that answers the points that you both raised. In relation to the rather different issue of whether more people are needed to run TFA/TFAR, Nikkimaria has agreed to provide back-up if necessary, although so far that hasn't been necessary even when I was on my summer holidays - I'd scheduled far enough ahead to give me some breathing space on my return and no panics (and no need to use the emergency store cupboard) arose in my absence. I'd also point out that most of the time TFAR looks after itself - there are few contentious issues, and there are lots of regular contributors who know how the place works, who know how to make and tweak and comment upon nominations etc. BencherliteTalk 21:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

"principle that FAs only run at TFA once." You are such a hypocrite. Transit of Venus is special my ass. And those other "special" ones, even more so. They were special because "Raul" and his minions liked them. Raul's crowd hates me. That's the real reason here. And once again you totally ignore my questions about consensus WHY ELSE HAVE TFAR VOTES and why if Grace were indeed on the MP why isn't it listed in that link? You ignored that too. How schizo can wiki get? And you say it's not for you to decide!!! You're the FA DICTATOR for crying out loud!!! You have proven here you do whatever you want and cherry pick rationales to support it and are merely a Raul clone. All you and 99% of wiki want to do is keep rubbing my nose in this and keeping me down. I was hoping this TFAR would be harbinger of positive change for wiki having finally occurred but you've proven it's all for naught, TFA is still run by a dictator (and Nikki...ha!) it's the same old crap. File an RFC on FA land? What a waste. Just like talking about RFA reform. It's all too painfully obvious I will forever be a persona non grata on wiki. You can thank yourself for being the last straw. Bye forever. Now I'm gone for good. I'm fed up with the crap and double standards. PumpkinSky talk 21:31, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you accuse me of ignoring your question (at 20:51) about the TFA link when I answered it immediately below it, before my main reply, or your points about consensus when I tried to explain that a local consensus on one nomination isn't enough. I'm not sure how you expect me to rip up unilaterally the rather fundamental "once and only once principle" when I am getting some criticism about making a very minor unilateral change to TFAR procedure - am I too much of a dictator, or not enough? And I'm not sure why you're making this whole issue the straw that breaks the camel's back. No-one here is rubbing your nose in anything - it was entirely your decision to nominate Grace Sherwood and to rely explicitly on your/its history as a reason in its favour. Even though I know you won't believe me, I am sad to see you go and I do wish you well in your future endeavours. BencherliteTalk 21:50, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
One thing to be considered is that if Grace Sherwood was to be run again, the article that replaced it would have every right to be run again as well. Ditto with the other plagiarism TFA that occurred after that. --Rschen7754 23:40, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Any of them likely to get a 13-2 vote?--Wehwalt (talk) 03:12, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Indeed; any exceptions need to be discussed by the community and exceptions should be rare. Can't really write a rule about exceptions, and Rschen's example is probably not going to happen. That said, how many of these are we talking, really? Less than a dozen? Montanabw(talk) 03:35, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, the hurricanes project has a lot of editors, and a hurricane was one of the articles mentioned... so 13-2 is not completely out of the question. --Rschen7754 03:49, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that might explain the 13, but hardly the 2.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Saying "a 13-2 vote" instead of "a 13–2 vote" seems to be a violation of the Manual of Style. Moreover this looks as a vote with 13+2=15 voters, not that much when changing a rule applying to, remember me, how many editors? Seen from Sirius --and even from Venus-- this looks as yet another eruption of fire-phylia. Pldx1 (talk) 11:41, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
As we are, as you put it, a "western-male-white-thirty Encyclopedia", I do not see why this so troubles you. Incidentally, "Encyclopedia" should not be capitalised except when used as part of a proper noun. You may also wish to consult WP:DASH which specifically cautions against using two minus signs in place of a proper dash.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:11, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
15 voters is not many, indeed I would have waited for more, there was no rush, but a trend showed. It was not not about changing rules, only about making an exception. I am not so interested in MOS questions when we lose people, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:45, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Chiming in from the peanut gallery here, but judging by this discussion only (I never looked in at the TFAR nom), I would side with Bencherlite over PumpkinSky pretty damn easily. I'm not sure I agree with Bencherlite's decision in its entirety, but at least they are responding in a calm, reasoned and thoughtful manner. That is far easier to support than pointless vitriol and a WP:DIVA stunt. Resolute 14:42, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
    You should have read the TFAR nom - AND read the article itself, Reso, and look at how it was improved by multiple editors. Psky is not being a "diva" (which is, BTW, a violation of NPA to call him that) to have done so much and then be slapped down so abruptly when consensus was clearly going in his direction. Plus, a lot of other people were involved this time, and we were ALL treated with the same dismissive attitude. Montanabw(talk) 20:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
This isn't about supporting any one editor; it is about an article many editors wrote. Discussing behaviour in that context would seem to be a red herring.... <|><. Like several of the editors here, I worked on this article and feel there are good arguments for running the article. In situations like this a group of editors, say three, making a decision might be more desirable than one. This both ensures several pairs of eyes are looking at the discussion points but also takes the weight off one editor if there is a stalemate in opinion as there is here. This is still part of the collaborative Wikipedia community, and what many editors think should mean something, should carry weight. Just some thoughts and I'll push off and leave this to others. (olive (talk) 17:39, 2 October 2013 (UTC))
Indeed, Wehwalt is one of wikipedia's most respected editors and an excellent collaborator, and he was heavily involved in the rewrite, so were a significant number of other people, including myself, some of whom have commented here. I doubt there has been any article on wikipedia subject to a more thorough and careful review than this one. If there was ever a case for the exception proving the rule, this is it. It isn't about just Psky, it's about all of us, and the larger community that will never read this little dramafest here, but might, someday, have to redeem other articles and move forward from a tough place. Montanabw(talk) 20:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
I am one of those many collaborators on the article. I don't think I've ever been involved with a TFA discussion, and TFA isn't a really big issue to me (as you can tell from the fact that I'm two weeks late here). I appreciate Bencherlite's tone and arguments, yet I think that IAR wouldn't have been a bad thing to apply here. Drmies (talk) 17:19, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

A more general discussion about TFA issues

Sub-heading added as this seems to be moving into a different topic, feel free to revert / move / reword. BencherliteTalk 07:17, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

The fact that struck me most from the above was that 1,330 articles are still waiting to go on the front page. This should prompt a re-examination of what it means to be 'on the front page' (I'm sure that discussion has happened before). Some of those writing FA articles, or working on former featured articles to bring them back to featured status, are quite happy with attaining that status for the article and leaving it at that. Being on the main page appears to bring more readers and a quasi-status symbol, and this causes problems. Some people seem to pursue the goal of an article being 'on the front page' as if it means something, an end in itself. It is actually the steady viewing over months and years of the FA-level article (by people who are looking for the topic and who probably read the article in full, as opposed to visitors from the main page who may not read the whole article and may click away after reading a small part) that should in the long run mean more than some 'day in sun' (someone should do a survey one day to ask Wikipedia readers how often they actually read the whole page they are on). Having said that, one way to 'reward' work done on former featured articles that had already appeared on the main page (or even work done at FAR) would be to give credit in terms of 'points' that could be used when proposing another (not yet main-paged) featured article for a TFA slot. Carcharoth (talk) 00:12, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Page views in general for TFA do seem down, generally when I've checked I've been disappointed, though that is purely anecdotal based on five or six years often checking these things. Given the variables (article topic, day of week, "school day" or not), analysis might be difficult, but that is my impression. Which made what PS and others did in shattering the TFA views record some months ago with Kafka so remarkable, even with the help of a Google doodle.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:56, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
I would agree with the statistical observation, but I think it is more that as standards have risen, so the typical "importance" and interest of TFA subjects has declined, and readership with it. Too many niche subjects have probably put people off. Johnbod (talk) 15:03, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
It could be, that is certainly one variable. I'm not sure Carcharoth's suggestion would work as generally, the points don't greatly matter due to the increased number of slots implemented at the urging of the community.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:06, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
Looking at Oct 1, c. 10k for Ramaria botrytis (the coral) is pretty low - beaten by my DYK Merry company the same day (just for 8 hours), but that had a sexy hook about prostitution. But the top 2 -ever TFAs (Kafka & 2012 phenomenon) are both from the last 10 months. If we carry on concentrating on working through the backlog low views seem likely to continue. Should we consider sometimes doing groups of say 4 or 5 in a group some days to hoover up full cateories like songs or hurricanes? Using a more DYK-like layout, but each with a small pic. Johnbod (talk) 15:15, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
I figure falling TFA figures are due to increasing esotericness of many FAs (especially mine) - many many more folks will look at more general interest stuff. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:28, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
My page view statistics links are showing "internal server error". Is this general, or just me? Brianboulton (talk) 22:36, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
  • If we're talking about the drop in TFA hits... I think I agree with Cas here. Very few Anglophone readers care about Indonesia (my main topic of interest) so I'm used to getting 10k while on the MP. ?, my only TFA to hit over 50k, was a fluke as it was run on Fish Day. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:10, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Indeed. The number of hits on TFA day does not reflect the effort or achievement of the editors who created the featured article, nor the quality of the article itself. Praise where praise is due, but we should be wary of fixing too much importance on this one factor. One of the main objectives of Wikipedia is – or should be – to spread knowledge and awareness of lesser-known topics, a thoroughly worthy aim. For example, pretty much all I know about birds I've learned from Jimfbleak's articles, which I'm always pleased to see on the main page. Brianboulton (talk) 07:33, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Well looking at the table on WP:HWY/TFA numbers are down... not sure what to make of it. --Rschen7754 07:39, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what conclusions to draw from page view statistics but here are a couple of thoughts. (1) Absolute page views are one thing but perhaps it's also worth looking at relative page view increases to see what that shows. Ramaria botrytis received 433 hits in the whole of August, or less than 14 a day; it did better in September, but not much, and some of this will be because it was nominated at TFAR then scheduled for October 1. With hits while on the main page of 8,512, it got more than 600 times its usual traffic that day. Franz Kafka got 99,350 hits in the whole of June, about 3,321 per day. With 768,586 hits on TFA day, it got "only" (as it were) about 232 times its usual traffic that day. (2) Some articles will have high page views anyway and some articles will get high page views on TFA day whether or not they are TFA. I very much doubt that 2012 phenomenon received 748,000 views just because it was the TFA - it got 320,000 hits the day before, for instance, and 729,000 the day afterwards because it was an extremely topical article. TFA rode the wave, it didn't generate the storm. I'd also be interested in working out the impact of Google Doodles on our page views statistics, after noticing through a recent WP:TOP25 report that Léon Foucault (a C-Class article, not mentioned on the main page) got 1,257,315 page views on his 194th birthday when he got a Google Doodle - compared to 22,758 for that day's TFA. Perhaps those who want high page views for a TFA need to chat with the people at Google, or other sites that would generate a bigger incoming buzz than 1,200 characters on WP's main page itself can muster...(!) BencherliteTalk 07:17, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Google Doodles with WP links will all get huge numbers Rembrandt (not FA) on July 15 also got 1.25M. 2012 phenomenon was also no doubt linked by tons of other topical sites like Reddit. Middle Ages on Sept 9, which probably didn't get a lot of extra links like that, but can be considered of wide interest I suppose, got 50K which is perhaps a sort of benchmark for a good level for a non-topical & non-link-assisted TFA. On DYK it is easier to see that lots of people glance at the hooks, & if they are intrigued will click; if not, not. Taking Wehwalt's figures, it is rather concerning if only 1 reader in 1000 on the main page clicks the link. Johnbod (talk) 11:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, is there anything that needs doing about that? Should we be looking for other ways to publicize the TFA. Perhaps those closer to the age of social media and networking (said age starts with a number somewhat to the left on the keyboard of my own) might have ideas?--Wehwalt (talk) 17:55, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
I can't recall seeing a Tweet from the Wikipedia account promoting the TFA. They might do it, but I can't recall seeing it. I do think a lot of it comes down to topic. My most-viewed TFA is Terry Fox, at 83k hits back in 2010. National hero, wide recognition via the Terry Fox Run, etc. Those were followed with a junior hockey team (19k), the Calgary Stampede (surprisingly low at 16k) and Grey Cup (Football, Canadian style; 41k). Resolute 18:55, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
While we're at it, does anyone know the lowest hits? Johnbod (talk) 22:13, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
I believe Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Baxter Healthcare was the lowest recorded, although stats don't exist for the early days and are patchy for some later dates. 188.31.209.184 (talk) 23:07, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Note that this may in part be affected by the shift to HTTPS. Not sure if it's true or not though. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:10, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Joseph Grimaldi – 18 December

This is my first time in nominating for TFA so please excuse me if I have misunderstood the rules. I would like to get in early by listing the above for the above date if at all possible, as I am likely to forget nearer the time when the dates are advertised. I have completed a draft of the blurb here....by the way, it will be his 235 birthday and he was famous at Christmas in his day thanks to his pantomimes. Seems like a stone-bonker to me. -- CassiantoTalk 18:52, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I made a first step and mentioned your beautifully crafted article in the "pending" list (above). I will take the second step and copy the blurb to WP:QAI/TFA where it will be seen even if you forget ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:26, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Bless you Gerda thank you very much! -- CassiantoTalk 22:27, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Introducing... "TFAIMAGE"

Georges Bizet

In the same way as {{TFAFULL}} provides an easy-to-use link at the end of the blurb, I've come up with {{TFAIMAGE}} for the image. You don't need to worry about finding and copying the "div style" formula. Instead, just write {{TFAIMAGE| NAME OF IMAGE (without "File:") | CAPTION }} and the template does the rest. If you think that the standard 100px is too small, you can add |size=133px (or whatever size is best) in the template and it will adjust the size accordingly.

An example: {{TFAIMAGE|Georges Bizet (flipped).jpg |Georges Bizet}} produces the image you see here. BencherliteTalk 20:37, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Update

Do we need the hat notes on this page? To a 2008 article, for example. - If we do, they should be presented better, on my (small) screen I see "For the", then the pending list, then the rest of them. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:58, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Is the layout better now? BencherliteTalk 11:21, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Replacement system for dated slots

I'm not sure I really understand the point of this system. Why can't we just have as many slots as needed to suggest date-related items up to, say, 6 weeks in advance? Date-related TFAs appear popular, if main-page talk is to be believed, and facilitating more people getting involved in the selection process might result in increased diversity. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:36, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

  • Er, loads of times? Does it really bloat to that size if not restricted? There seems to have been relatively little activity here over past months. If so, could some less arbitrary system for reducing its size be tried, such as scheduling items where consensus is clear ahead of non-date-related items? Espresso Addict (talk) 12:58, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
  • That it is small now does not mean it will always be; in fact, right now it's full up. I fail to see what benefit would be had in removing the limit altogether. It would only promote free-for-all-ism.
As for the nasty load times... there's a reason I never went to ANI when I had my old connection; page took 10 minutes to load. We cannot just cater to people who have superfast fiber optics and such. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:05, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
  • That would be the main page talk thread where the person wanting more TFA date anniversaries thought that B-class articles would be OK in the TFA slot? Not sure that's a terribly strong body of support... ;-) The original point of the system was to ensure that the page was not swamped with nominations as it used to be (and that diff with 141 nominations isn't the worst, I'm sure - I've seen comments in the talk archives about 200+ nominations). Having all 10 slots filled is rare, in fact, and it rarely stays full as I tend to schedule regularly (in fact, I've just scheduled one so we're back down to 9 nominations for 8 days). Having some sort of limit of numbers, not just time period, does mean that the lower scoring nominations lose out, but that would generally be because such articles have points penalties for recent similar articles. The points system has been developed over a number of years to highlight the articles with the strongest claims to TFA appearances (round-number anniversaries, articles on categories of FAs that are very underrepresented, etc) and a no-limit page would effectively get rid of the points system entirely. Although points aren't everything, calculating the points makes people think about the issues that the points represent (diversity, similarity, date relevance etc). I'd be reluctant to have nominations open for !voting too far in advance because I think the page works best with a good turnover of nominations. If it stagnates, people lose interest (as happened with the TFL suggestions page - in fact, when that was rebooted, a strict limit of 10 nominations was imposed...). BencherliteTalk 13:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
  • As for a lack of activity, while activity on this page comes and goes, it still provides just under half of the TFA choices (44% vs 56% my choice) so saying "relatively little activity" is not right. I don't see how removing the limits would increase the use of the page anyway. BencherliteTalk 13:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the long response, Bencherlite. I stand corrected on the total page size (wow!), but all but a handful of those appear to be non-date-specific. I think relaxing the rather arcane systems attached to this page might promote broader community involvement, though of course that might not promote diversity.
In the present case, I don't think it makes sense to boot out Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) when a discussion on its running date remains active; it would make more sense to boot off the furthest in the future, or to schedule items which have gained consensus ahead of the non-specific date items (is there a reason why you don't tend to do this?). Espresso Addict (talk) 13:57, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not vetoing any changes to the way the page works, of course, just making some points from my perspective. Removing an article because it gets bumped off for low points etc doesn't mean that I wipe it from my memory and I could still run it on a suitable date. As for not scheduling out of turn, it's a mixture of a few practical issues. In no particular order: (a) The automatic note that says "Currently accepting requests from November 5 to December 5" would have be changed to say "Currently accepting requests from November 5 to December 5, apart from November 12, 17, 19, and 24" and / or we'd need to keep notes on this page as to what was scheduled and when, to avoid duplicate nominations for dates that were already scheduled. (b) How would the points work if someone nominated an article (Foo) for a particular date and it got scheduled, then someone else nominated a similar article (Bar) with a stronger claim to be FA (say a major anniversary that had been overlooked, or a new promotion)? Would we say "sorry, tough, Foo got scheduled first", or do we penalise Bar, or run both even if we wouldn't necessarily have done so if both were up for discussion at the same time, or reschedule Foo, or reopen the discussion on Foo? At least if we schedule in date order then everyone knows where they stand. (c) Although I'm not opposed to rescheduling when people ask me not to run a particular FA because they're saving it for another date, for example, it is a lot of hassle. I have to choose a different article (one that doesn't clash with too many of the recent / proposed TFAs), write a blurb that won't get me shouted at by the WP:ERRORS crew, remove move-protection from the old article, reset the article history on that, move-protect the new article, set the article history on that (as the bot doesn't handle rescheduled TFAs) and change the succeeding three days' blurbs "Recently featured" list. The less rescheduling that I have to do, the better - it wastes my time! (d) What sort of consensus are we talking about? A couple of supportive comments on a 1-point nomination - sometimes not even that - will generally see the article picked, but is that what you're talking about? Or would we have some mathematical formula of "x points + y supports = Z therefore schedule now"? Or would it only kick in when the page is full? (In which case, wouldn't it just be easier for me to schedule the first open dates and free-up space that way? BencherliteTalk 14:27, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
First off, I should state that, imo, you're doing a great job here, Bencherlite.
Whether or not an article gets run after being bumped for low points, I think bumping could give the unfortunate impression to newbies that TFA selection is hard to understand, and -- probably wrongly -- potentially biased in favour of regulars and/or against the type of content in question.
Re your points on scheduling out of turn: (a) It wouldn't seem to me to be a problem to include "except for..." in the note at the top, and/or to leave a heading for dates already scheduled saying Foo is scheduled for this date. (b) I can see that this might occasionally cause a problem, but I don't know how common this eventuality might be? Editors who are pushing articles through FAC with a specific anniversary in mind after promotion could be encouraged to drop a note somewhere (perhaps the potential requests page), so that dates with conflict could be identified. (c) I can see that rescheduling is a lot of hassle, but hopefully this change wouldn't involve it happening more than very occasionally. (d) I'd envisaged it only happening when the page was approaching full, with the director using judgement to decide whether consensus had been achieved. Obviously if there's an early date where consensus has been achieved then that would be a good choice to schedule. However, my reading of the current situation -- as a convenient example -- is that there is ongoing discussion over whether to use Child of Our Time or Enter the Wu-Tang on 9 November, while Jefferson nickel (15th) & Alkan (30th) appear to me to have gained consensus to run. Espresso Addict (talk) 18:05, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks!
I can't actually remember the last time an article got bumped under the "page full" rules. Can any of the regulars think of an instance?
Based on our discussion, a modest adjustment to the workings of the page occurs to me - see below. BencherliteTalk 18:48, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion about 10 specific-date requests

At present, the wording is "There may be no more than ten requests on this page for specific dates". Earlier on today the position was that there were nine dates under consideration and ten articles proposed for those dates (two articles, Foo and Bar, proposed for one date). Any further nominations would have bumped off the lower-supported out of Foo and Bar even though (FWIW) they have the same point score and in any event discussion about whether/how to run both or whether to run just one was still continuing. It seems to me in such cases that there is no problem with alternatives for the same date being discussed, so I'd propose rewording the instructions near the top as follows:

There may be no more than ten requests on this page for specific dates ten dates under discussion on this page at any one time, and four requests for nonspecific dates. More than one article can be proposed for any particular date.

and I'd suggest rewording the removal instructions as:

If there are already ten date-specific requests ten days with nominations or four nonspecific requests, and the article you propose to add has more points than one of the articles already requested for a nonspecific date or the article(s) under discussion for a specific date (as appropriate), you may remove a nonspecific request or a date discussion and add yours (explaining in your post the claimed point total) according to the following:

  1. If a requested article has at least five declarations and over 50% oppose votes (counting the nominator's declaration as a support) at least 48 hours after the request is initiated, it may be removed regardless of its point value.
  2. If item 1 doesn't apply, then if there are two requests for the same date, the request within that date with the lowest number of points may be removed, regardless of how many points articles outside that date may have.
  3. Otherwise, replace the request that has the least points. If there is a tie, choose the one with the highest percentage of opposes. In case of a tie in oppose percentage, replace the one with the fewest support votes. If support is equal, remove the article with the latest date. If the tied articles are for the same date, remove any one of them, at your option.

Thoughts? BencherliteTalk 18:48, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

It still sounds complicated. As a nominator, I would just wait until a slot becomes free. Do you think you could handle 12 dates? Or 15? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:36, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
As one of the regulars, Gerda, can you remember the last time before today (for just a few hours) we had 10 articles nominated for date-specific slots? Because I can't. So why do we need to increase to as many as 15 slots if the 10 slots are effectively never fully used? What's the problem in waiting a couple of days anyway if someone would rather not bump an article off? And this proposal is designed to reduce complication, not increase it. BencherliteTalk 20:49, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
The above looked to me as if we needed rules for bumping off a nomination exceeding 10. May be I misunderstood. I don't like the idea of replacing someone else's nomination, and I said just above that I would wait. I had hoped we could eliminate all ruling about replacing, making things easier. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:57, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
We already have rules for bumping off, set out above (with proposed amendments marked), although they are now rarely used (they were frequently used when there were only 5 slots on the page). I was trying to simplify them. If you would prefer to wait, fine, but do you have any views on the amendments? BencherliteTalk 21:32, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
I guess you ask others, because I think I made clear (above and earlier) that I would prefer to get rid of "bumping off" altogether, hoping to resolve conflict in discussions of the community, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:58, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't think this amendment will cause any harm, but it doesn't address the complexity of the current rules, nor the (real or perceived) unfairness of the bumping process. I'd prefer to allow some flexibility to have more slots so that bumping only happened to items with substantial opposition, or at least lack of non-nominator support after being up at least 2–3 days. But that relies on nominators to keep their noms in check, which might not be practical. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
Bencherlite, your last edit summary addressed me, asking if the above amendments of the amendments are better? Better, yes. I still dream of simple rules that assume that we respect each other and the articles of others: then we don't need a limit for the slots and no rules for "bumping" at all, just an invitation: if you want to nominate and see ten slots already filled, consider to wait or talk to other nominators about urgency.
Gerda, my last edit summary was about something completely different - - the layout at the top of the page. BencherliteTalk 13:57, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
That IS better, much better! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:31, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Blurb standards

I have the same concerns as User:SandyGeorgia about the declining standards of what is appearing in TFA. The blurbs need to be properly audited for prose (and in some cases overlinking). Tony (talk) 00:37, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I see the new notification system works, since I named you in a post :) I'm not concerned about declining standards in blurbs here, because Bencherlite is largely cleaning them up before they hit the main page. I'm concerned about 1) declining quality of reviews at FAC and 2) declining numbers of reviewers at FAC, which leads ultimately to what TFA has to work with (leads as they pass FAC). Look at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Julianne Moore/archive1 compared to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Katharine Hepburn/archive1 (and the amount of review Hepburn had before she came to FAC). What appears here in the blurbs is what is passing FAC, although there is a separate problem that some people are putting up blurbs here that do not conform with the instructions, and then some reviewers here are Supporting nominations without checking for quality-- none of which makes Bencherlite's job any easier. (That linking is not getting review has already been mentioned at WT:FAC but someone has to do it.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:47, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I think there's a perception (perhaps a misperception) that support/oppose votes refer to the quality of the article/its date suitability/the balance of articles featured recently at TFA, rather than the blurb itself. Fixing an article like Moore, which imo should never have passed, or an aged FA that's deteriorated, is usually too time-consuming to do in the time window of a few weeks. Fixing a 1200-character blurb with a few overlinks or ill-phrasings takes a matter of seconds. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:54, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Welllll ... then maybe we should remind people of the purpose of this page. Historically, the director scheduled TFAs, and could decide to not schedule a poor article. But the community wanted to have a say, so this page evolved. Now the community has its say, and the delegate is forced to run poorly prepared articles, because people are supporting but not checking! The worst example I saw of an article that should not be an FA, has been massively reworked since appearing here and being rejected TFA, is still probably not compliant, had text not supported by sources, BLP vios, you name it, was Stephen Hawking. Bencherlite didn't run it, but it got support here in spite of clear and obvious deficiencies, and that it came to FAC after a previously failed FAC with no adjustments to account for the issues; once folks starting looking into it, a more serious number of issues turned up. So, yea ... if the community wants a say, they're supposed to be helping Bencherlite, not making TFA selection harder by supporting deficient articles. It's not a popularity contest. Is it? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I'd consider that Bencherlite has a veto on running articles he considers too poor, even if they gain consensus here. Personally I do try to read all the articles I support here, but I suspect many are relying on the featured process to have done the donkey work first. If new FAs can't be relied upon to be in decent shape, then misinformed votes here are perhaps the least of the encyclopedia's worries. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:19, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Two separate problems, but since we no longer have an FA director, the buck is stopping with Bencherlite. Not a good situation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:26, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

This is so unproductive for me: I've got people criticising the article I wrote without giving any clear indicators of what needs to be improved. What is even the point? What do you get out of this other than making me feel rubbish? The article isn't getting any better, is it? No-one else is learning from your complaints, not when they're so vague. If you (SandyGeorgia and Esspresso Addict) really need to criticise people's work in the future, please at least make it useful. I'm seriously wondering why I even bother putting effort into this place... --Loeba (talk) 01:36, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Expresso's critique is not my critique; perhaps s/he will provide more detail on article talk. I have not read the article; I have commented on the blurb, if there are problems in the lead that does give rise to concern (but for all I know, the rest of the article is fine), and I have commented on the overall trend of increasingly scanty review and number of reviewers at FAC, and evidenced by the number of quality reviewers known to me to engage the FA standards who were involved at Hepburn compared to what we see of late. I just checked your contribs, and I see you doing your part at FAC by contributing reviews, so good on you-- you are braver than I, because when I have engaged content review processes of late, I encounter attacks from people when you merely point out to them that a source is not reliable or an image caption misidentifies well known public figures. And, I don't think of it as unproductive for you ... what is really and truly unpleasant is to have an ill-prepared article go on the mainpage, and have all kinds of idiots who have never even written an FA or endured a FAC grilling holler at you over trivialities, so the more strident review you get in here, the better for you in the long run. Buck up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:46, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Well I'm afraid it still doesn't end up being productive, because how am I going to be saved from this horrible experience during TFA unless someone is actually going to identify or fix those problems beforehand? I can't do it myself - obviously I can't see anything in the text as problematic or I wouldn't have written it in that way. And for what it's worth, the FAC review may seem short because 2 of the reviewers had already given longer comments at PR (and I feel bad for them that their reviews are also being criticised - as far as I'm concerned, their comments were helpful and I'd happily turn to them again for reviews (I already have, in fact)). --Loeba (talk) 02:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
No one is intending to fault you, Loeba, there are problems in the process. And it is not whether a review is short or long; the reviewers who engaged Hepburn were some of FACs best reviewers historically, the current prose standards coming out of FAC are well below what they were then, those reviewers are mostly gone now, and no one is pulling the standard back up. You shouldn't feel bad for someone whose review is critiqued; if they can't learn from it, they are doing you, us, FAC and our readers a disservice. Have you seen Tony's redundancy reducing exercises on his user page? With one short pass, he eliminated some glaring redundancies from your lead-- other reviewers can learn from him, and you will see what a pleasure it is to get good review, as you did at Hepburn, where you had Maria, Brian, Laser, Nikki ... many others I can't remember. Tony used to routinely spot check FACs for prose, and we need him back, if for nothing else, for his value as a teacher by example. Please don't feel bad-- my own prose stinks, and that is why we need to encourage our top copyeditors to come back to FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I read the first 25% or so of the article before it became apparent that it was not of the prose quality I am prepared to support for (T)FA. I think it can be very hard to try to compile a featured article on someone like Moore, as most of the sources do not review her work in any depth, giving very little to work from. I'll put some general thoughts on the part I read on the talk page. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:53, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Well I'm happy to hear you acknowledge the difficulties of writing an article like this. I literally had to piece together my own biography of Julianne Moore from brief comments scattered among hundreds or interviews, articles and reviews. It's really difficult to make that flow properly, especially while making sure every thing is fully covered by a source. I maintain that I'm proud of the final result, and regardless of whether it has "excellent" prose or not, the 5,000 people who look at her article every day get a comprehensive biography of her all in one place. Wikipedia is currently the only source in the world that does that, so I'm pleased with myself whether or not this ends up on the main page. Anyway, that would be very helpful if you could highlight the problems you see. I do want the article to be as good as possible. --Loeba (talk) 02:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I quickly ran through the lead for Julianne Moore. Tony (talk) 02:02, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Very nice :) [3] Tony, FAC needs more of you (and User:Eric Corbett), at least to jog the new reviewers with a few samples into a better understanding of what the FA standards once were. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:07, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, I appreciate you being proactive. --Loeba (talk) 02:15, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Multiple noms

There are 10 requests on the page, and three of them are from one nominator, with the TFA delegate having to point out that this nominator (Gerda) is creating more work than necessary. How can this recurring problem be addressed? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:55, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Is it really a problem that a single contributor is suggesting multiple high-quality articles that are receiving broad support? Espresso Addict (talk) 17:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
No, the problem is that a single nominator is putting forward faulty blurbs that the delegate or others have to clean up, which creates more work for him (see his words, linked above). If would be optimal if the folks putting forward blurbs didn't create extra work, or if they won't or can't do that, left the spaces open for those who can or will. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Not to put motivations into her head, but I suspect Gerda put forward Britten to avoid Alkan being supported by those who hadn't realised there was an unfortunate clash with the dates. I don't know why the main authors of Britten didn't nominate it earlier; I was about to ping them to ask whether it would be appropriate for me to put it forward when Gerda nominated it and saved me the trouble. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:09, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I am not intending to reference any specific request, rather a problematic trend that has been going on for a while (deficient blurbs that need cleanup). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:24, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Gerda has nominated several of my articles recently. I think she reads the prompt on my talkpage, where I list upcoming TFA requests, and does it for me. I always check the blurbs myself – one of the great benefits of Benchelite's system is that there is always time to do this properly. Incidentally, I very much doubt Gerda nominated Britten for the reasons outlined above; six of the supports are common to both nominations, and there is no dates clash, simply proximity. Brianboulton (talk) 23:14, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Lambeosaurus

Where did this discussion go? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beyondallmeaning (talk • contribs) 03:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

It has been scheduled at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 19, 2013. — Cirt (talk) 03:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
The discussions are not archived but you can find them in the former versions, in this case here, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:09, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Also, SCIENCE!!! Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 19:06, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Speaking of science, will a collaborative effort make Stephen Hawking presentable for his next birthday in January? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:33, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
I actually read a few accounts that say Hawking is a Wikipedian but no one has revealed his username.--ColonelHenry (talk) 21:12, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Interesting, but I referred to the FA about him that was not good enough last year, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:29, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
If it's not up to par you might want to try WP:FAR and post to lots of science related WikiProjects and get participants to work together to improve it that way, just a thought. — Cirt (talk) 22:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Here is last year's discussion, - I won't touch the matter (didn't even manage to calculate his birthday right), you could do it ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:40, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Well, personally I'm more focused on improving stuff related to freedom of speech these days, but I see what you mean, thanks for the link. — Cirt (talk) 22:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

How requests work

Hello. I'm confused about this process works. The project page lists requests up to Jan. 4 2013. This page lists requests for the next year. Yet there are requests here, for dates prior to Jan. 4, that are not there, such as for Grimaldi and Jesus. Beyondallmeaning (talk) 17:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

  • The main requests page is only for articles that a person would like to have appear on the main page in the specified timeframe - currently it's from December 4 to January 3. The little box at the top of this page isn't a request thing - it's something used so people can say "at this date in the future I would like to have this on the Main Page and will probably nominate it when it is eligible for nomination." Got it? Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 17:55, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Not really. Is the project page for nominations, and the box on this page is for nominations for nominations for the project page? Beyondallmeaning (talk) 20:31, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

The "pending list" is for long-time planning. It would be good to have as a reminder on the nominations page, but this page has more room for it. Makes sense? (Not to me.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Twin mainpage nom?

Triangulum and Triangulum Australe are the two triangle constellations (duh! I hear you say), with one in the northern and one in the southern hemisphere. I thought it'd be kinda neat to have them as a twin mainpage nom (was planning to do it with Corona Australis and Corona Borealis initially, but the latter article I have not yet buffed to FAC...). Thought I'd flag this here for feedback before nominating...Bencherlite? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:25, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, it'd be neat if we could have a Twin mainpage nom on Twins! Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 02:20, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Cirt, we had one of those in September, do keep up! See WP:Today's featured article oddities. I'm not sure about how good an idea it is to have a double TFA for the triangular constellations. It's only been done twice before - the Sedin twins on their birthday in September, and the March 2013 triple TFA of WW2 weapon bunkers. The Sedins have very similar lead articles since their sporting careers have run in parallel; the weapons bunkers leads have a lot of overlap and the date was a significant anniversary where there was something to be said for running all of them to avoid having to choose which one to pick. However the Sedins, in particular, suffered in page views - the twin mentioned second in the blurb got only 62% of the page views of the first. The Sedins and the bunkers also came from FA sections where we have lots of unused articles (warfare; sport). We are not so blessed with astronomical FAs, nor are the lead sections so similar that it would be like having the same blurb twice if we ran them as singletons. So I'm in two minds, which isn't terribly helpful. Perhaps, Casliber, you could put a blurb on my talk page and I'll see how it looks. BencherliteTalk 10:48, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Fascinating, neat page of oddities! — Cirt (talk) 11:36, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Bencherlite I am pumping out a few constellation FAs, so at some point we'll have more - I will have a think about it and see if we can come up with an interesting blurb. If I can buff Corona Borealis I think having the two crowns has more of an obvious yin-yang type symmetry. Still.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:10, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Jesus TFA for Christmas Day

Unsurprisingly, it's been scheduled. There's a general discussion about whether TFAs should be given some sort of editing protection (semi/PC/full) while on the main page taking place at WT:TFA, for those of you who haven't seen it. I won't be editing on Christmas Day (or probably for a few days beforehand) so I won't be able to impose any greater level of protection than the article already has. So I will leave it to the admins who are around on 25th Dec to decide what if any additional level of protection is needed (assuming that the discussion about protection for all TFAs hasn't concluded by then). BencherliteTalk 13:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

Bencherlite, for scheduling 2013, quite an achievement, with little friction and often a smile. I think of the Georges and the last line of the year: "Áedán may have been deposed, or have abdicated, following this defeat, and the annals report nothing of him until his death around six years later." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Gerda, and my repeated thanks to all those who nominate (whether their own articles or others), comment upon nominations, improve blurbs, watch over FAs on TFA day, help with images and assist in other ways that I can't think of now (and write the FAs in the first place, of course!) Hopefully the smile-to-friction ratio has been generally positive and I look forward to another productive year between us all in 2014. BencherliteTalk 22:52, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
The smile-to-friction ratio has been quite positive overall. Thanks very much to Bencherlite for all you do here. I'll toast with some whiskey to your splendid efforts in 2013. — Cirt (talk) 22:57, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Agree with Cirt...definitely will drink to your dedication and diligence. The project has definitely benefitted from your leadership.--ColonelHenry (talk) 22:59, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
<Blushes slightly, nips to drinks cupboard> Cheers! BencherliteTalk 23:02, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Bencherlite, for helping showcase Wikipedia's best articles on a variety of topics! Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 23:05, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TFA Protector Bot in its trial period

TFA Protector Bot (talk · contribs · logs)

Just to let people know that a new bot is undergoing a trial at the moment, which will apply move-protection to TFAs once scheduled. Now all we have to do is get it to choose the TFAs in the first place and I can retire... ;-) BencherliteTalk 23:38, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Forgot to mention, but you may have spotted it in action anyway: the bot is approved and adding move-protection to all TFAs that don't have it already. This is a great help since this was one of the parts of the job that I got wrong more often than not (or so it seemed to me anyway!) Thank you to Legoktm, its operator. BencherliteTalk 23:08, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

That question is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria#Articles on notable subjects that are not eligible for featured status. Please weigh in on the discussion there. Imzadi 1979 → 18:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the notification here, Imzadi1979, I find that particular topic a most fascinating and worthwhile subject for discussion. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 23:19, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

How did this clunker get to be TFA? It is riddled with basic faults; poor grammar, formatting issues, and lousy sourcing. I've tried to clean up the obvious problems but this really doesn't represent our best work. --John (talk) 14:21, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

  • I was looking through those FAs that haven't appeared in order to write a few blurbs, and noticed the same thing last night with a few random selections. Should we create a three-month sweep to clear out the less-than-stellar FAs from years ago? or do we continue to include them judging them by the old standards? Is the 2007 (or in general, earlier) version of the FA criteria available? I'd like to compare the old and current standards. There are three FAs that I was involved in years ago that I think need massive amounts of work and could easily be defrocked if we did a sweep. Only one of them would I be interested in repolishing. --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:19, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree there should be a sweep for FAs from 2006 or earlier. Just look at the FA Diane Keaton; full of choppy prose, poor sourcing, a lack of inline cites, and failing to use many available sources. It was promoted in '06, but no formal review of its bronze star has occurred (I'm planning to do so in a week). Jim Thorpe somehow kept its status after a FAR, but it's missing tons of citations, so that's one to watch. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 16:54, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
John: the regulars at TFAR had nothing to do with the selection of T-26 as the TFA today. That's the short version of my response. The long version of my response may or may not follow depending on whether I think better of it. In the meantime: (1) the more nominations that are made here, the less work I have to do - the 2013 list of TFAs shows that I chose more than 55% of TFAs; for the last 31 days scheduled the figure is 68%, because TFAR has been very quiet. (2) Anyone wanting to look at older FAs that have not been on the main page (with a view to TFA or FAR) could do much worse than carry on the job that Dweller started at User:Dweller/Featured_Articles_that_haven't_been_on_Main_Page. BencherliteTalk 21:42, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Without looking at an article's history, one can't be sure if a page has deficiencies because FAC standards weren't what they are now at the time of assessment/promotion, or simply that changes made since promotion haven't been checked by involved editors. That said, I seem to remember that citing every paragraph only became the norm around 2007-08. 2008 was the year of my first FAC and I recall ensuring all paras were cited because that appeared to be the requirement. Hell, when I suggest to prospective FAC nominators that they check out FAs and their FACs on subjects similar to theirs, I never recommend looking at articles promoted before 2010.
As to helping avoid this situation, aside from Bench's suggestions re. more TFAR noms and more FARs, people who still like to look after "their" FAs might like to give him a list of articles they'd be happy to see at TFA when he's scouting around for fillers. I've done that here with a few of my personal faves that I've also ensured are main-page ready, i.e. all links working, latest style conventions applied, etc. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
  • @Bencherlite: - out of curiosity, in 2013 how many of the TFAs have been from articles that were promoted in the 30-60-90 days before appearing on TFA? I know with the articles I bring to FAC, I usually put them up at TFA/R a day or two after they're promoted. Coincidentally, I notice a lot of the articles that were in the FAC queue when my nominations were there never get to TFA. Is there a ratio between promotions that appear, and promotions that don't? Perhaps, we should take the list of FAs from the signpost, contacted the nominator to ask "would you like your FA to appear on the main page?" give them a few days to write a blurb or respond, and just write them ourselves, we could solve some of the problem. Expect at least one or two blurbs tonight--ColonelHenry (talk) 23:08, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
    • ColonelHenry - that's not a statistic I've been recording, but you'll get an idea from looking through WP:FA2013 of how many 2013 FAs have appeared at TFA so far. I try and mix recent and older FAs. Towards the end of the year, I started using User:Bencherlite/FA congrats to template the writers of recent FAs, which brought a few new faces here for nominations, but time caught up with me in the last couple of weeks and I'll try and reinstate this in the new year. Sorry I can't reply at greater length at the moment to the thread here, but I'm still on holiday and the children are taking priority (and Mrs Bencherlite, of course!) BencherliteTalk 09:18, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
      • @Bencherlite: - Mrs Bencherlite probably makes cookies, where Wikipedia only will give you a picture of a cookies. She always deserves priority ;). I know TFA works better because of your reorganization of the process--and just in the few weeks since I put up Samuel Merrill Woodbridge, I've seen a few new faces on TFA/R...heck, I'm hanging around more often. I'll look through the 2013 TFAs and see if there is a trend. Nothing to do today. --ColonelHenry (talk) 14:35, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
  • @Ian Rose: - Would you be averse to an FA sweep?--ColonelHenry (talk) 23:08, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
    • Not averse at all -- echoing Bench, Dweller's list'd be the place to start. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:34, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
      • @Ian Rose: - Would you prefer that a sweep go through the FAR process, or would we be able to put together a quicker process? Like a "voice vote" in Congress compared to a formal 15-minute roll call.--ColonelHenry (talk) 00:42, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
        • Well, I think we'd need further discussion either way. If we do a sweep via FAR, there's additional pressure on that process. OTOH avoiding FAR means bypassing our safeguard against arbitrary removal of FA status; not aware of a precedent for that (though of course if we stick to precedence all the time then nothing ever changes) -- SandyGeorgia, any input on that? Nikkimaria, your thoughts from the fAR perspective? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:25, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
        • P.S. We're into the last 12 hours of 2013 down under so if I can't check in again before 2014, Happy New Year all... :-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:21, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
        • Why overthink this? Put together a list that runs to whatever date you want and do a quick pass for quality. On any articles that you feel requires improvement, notify relevant editors and wikiprojects. Give some time, say three months, during which the article would be ineligible to be on the main page. If nothing happens in that time, then FAR. Lightweight, simple, and a little more cordial than running a bunch of people straight into an adversarial process at the same time. Resolute 04:16, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
          • @Resolute:, I like the idea of that...but add to it this way: If we were to set up a "sweeps" score card, we assemble a list of many editors who would be interested in the sweep (i.e. hit up all the active wikicup participants) and each person is obligated to read the articles, give the articles a "keep or delist" vote, add some comments on what they think are the article's short coming below, and at the end of a set period, the articles where there's an overwhelming consensus on delisting (like 15-20 votes), we delist, if the consensus is murky, we send it to FAR.--ColonelHenry (talk) 05:51, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
            • Wikicup participants evaluating Featured articles? Surely, you jest; just the idea might be enough to make folks realize what they've done by leaving FA leaderless. At any rate, any discussion of how/whether to proceed with a sweep or anything else related to de-featuring articles, should it get serious, would need to occur at WT:FAR. If you can get 15 to 20 people to read anything in here, then FAR would be active again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:10, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Ian.

First, that some "clunkers" appear TFA is not necessarily a problem; we have clunkers, them's the facts, and some of them are recently promoted. Putting the clunker on the mainpage brings attention, and sometimes, the article gets cleaned up. In this case, I doubt it will, though, because the main editor is mostly inactive, and the second editor is inactive. The article will likely end up defeatured because it has taken on a large amount of uncited text since it was featured, and it is unlikely that anyone is around to clean it up.

Second, the problem is not with the criteria, which haven't changed that significantly since T-26 passed; the featured version is plainly visible in the ArticleHistory (as with every FA), and it was cited. The problem here is clearly one of the main editor becoming inactive, and another editor taking over who didn't know the standards.

Third, Ian, yes there is a precedent for FA sweeps. It was before my time, but both Maralia and I built all the articlehistories for every FA and FFA (along with Gimmetrow), and many of those older ahs involved FAs from the "Refreshing Brilliant Prose" phase, which was basically what we call today a "sweep" (all then-current FAs were voted in or out in a "refreshing"). You can probably find discussion of that at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-07-21/Dispatches.

Do we need a sweep ??? I have long been dismayed that FAR has gone moribund, and that the regular, systematic means we had in 2006 thru 2009 of processing through old FAs has not been kept up (see Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles). When Joelr31 and Marskell ran FAR, with my help, we quite regularly kept up the list of FAs due for review, and we quite regularly processed through them, and FARs rarely took more than a month. (See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-02-11/Dispatches.) It is a mystery to me why FARs are now lagging for four to six months, and why the delegates have not taken it as part of their mandate to make sure old FAs are processed (I personally believe this is happening because the FA process no longer has a leader who made sure this sort of work happened). By my estimate, at least a third of our current FAs are not at standard-- not because standards have changed, but because FAR has gone moribund and FAs that have fallen into disrepair because their "watchers" left have not been processed. FAR is capable of processing large numbers of FARs; when the standards did change, we processed through 523 old FAs and salvaged a third of them. But that was when FAR was active. So, in summary, whether or not we need a "sweep" to clean out the FAs that are no longer at standard is really something we need to hear from Nikkimaria and Dana boomer on. I just don't understand why they haven't tried to keep FAR running like it used to, and if they feel it's too much of a task, then I will reluctantly concur that some "sweep" mechanism might be needed.

Having said that, I'm a bit troubled at the speed that some people who don't know the history of the FA process sometimes move, so would caution that should we enact some sort of "sweep", it needs to be carefully thought out and planned, so that the process will be as deliberative as it should be. (If someone has to ask how to find the older versions of WIAFA, I wonder about their level of knowledge of how Wikipedia works.) I'd be much happier if Nikki and Dana would instead agree to pick up the pace at FAR, and process most FARs in under a month as was done historically.

I would also generally add that, under Raul, the FA process kept "records"; anyone who wants to know anything about the history of the FA process, most of it can be found by becoming familiar with the old articles at

. If anyone wants more info about the "Refreshing Brilliant Prose" phase, I will look it up-- I know where to look for it all, but it will take me some time to find it. But, yes, it was basically a "sweep" via an up-or-down vote. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:47, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

  • @SandyGeorgia: - that was stupid of me to inquire that knowing full well I should have shut up and spent the time looking through the history (and surprised at how little that criteria gets edited). I don't even know why I asked that...maybe I was hoping for someone to put up links to major changes and save me the time. (which you introduced me to a few things I wasn't even aware of. --ColonelHenry (talk) 04:06, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oh, well, good that you asked, because I can tell you the major changes without having to look them up :) :) See the Dispatches I posted above ... there was a huge change after the Siegenthaler controversy, which led to the requirement for inline citations. As a result of the inline citation change (about 2006?), we had to process fully half of the then-FAs through FAR (523) to get inline citations added. (The Refreshing Brilliant Prose "sweep" happened much earlier-- I think about 2003 or 2004, before I was an editor.) Some of the original authors had left, and citations couldn't be upgraded, but there was a huge group of folks who worked at FAR to save a third of those articles and get them cited.

    Since then, there have been lots of little tweaks in instructions and process, but few other significant changes in criteria. See Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics#Promote.2Farchive stats. There are five footnotes in that chart, marking either change in process (when I was delegate, some things were instituted that hadn't been done before) or change in criteria. That's pretty much it, except those stats haven't been kept up since I resigned. (Oh, except that sometime in between footnotes a and b, we started getting much more stringent image reviews, during the Reign of the Gran Elcobbola, Jappalang, and other excellent image reviewers, who raised standards-- see the two Dispatches on image reviewing for the dates when serious image reviews began to happen. I'm unaware if anyone today is doing the quality of sourcing and image checking that Ealdgyth, Elcobbola, Jappanlang and others did, although I know Nikkimaria has kept up on copyvio checks.)

    The simple answer to where things stand today can be seen at WP:URFA. The first part of that page is the history of the 523 FAs that were reviewed because they had no (or insufficient) inline citations through June 2006, when requirements changed. The second part of that page was a list of unreviewed 2005 and 2006 FAs. That list is no longer maintained, it is unknown how many of those still on that list have been reviewed, and by now they should have all been reviewed, and a new list of unreviewed 2007 and 2008 FAs should have been initiated. We're about three years behind. Do we need a sweep? Or can FAR pick up the pace and begin the systematic approach to review we used to have? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:09, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

  • FAR can process more articles, but we're going to need more community engagement. A major part of the reason FAR moves so slowly is that there are often few (or no) comments on even the most deficient articles, leaving the delegates at a loss, as we don't feel it appropriate to delist an article with comments from only one or two editors. I agree that there are numerous articles that need to be processed through FAR (see the list in Dweller's userspace, along with all of the FAs with cleanup tags listed here, some going back to 2008), and it would be great to do some sort of sweep. I am more than willing to participate in a sweep, and to run through FAR more often, but the community who is so willing to comment here is going to need to actually be willing to do some heavy lifting, rather than just expressing outrage and then expecting the delegates to...what? Nominate the articles ourselves, review them ourselves and then delist articles that only we commented on? The best thing to do would be for everyone commenting here to go find a deficient article, notify interested editors on the talk page, wait to see if there is any reply, and then list the article at FAR. Then rinse, repeat. Or find an article that already had a talk page notification, and nominate it immediately - Order of the Garter and Music of Maryland both qualify, and there are probably others. Now, I'm going to go run through FAR, hope to see you all over there! Dana boomer (talk) 13:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, I would definitely be willing to mentor/answer questions for anyone who is interested. Maybe we should take any specific discussion on that to either my talk page or the FAR talk page? Dana boomer (talk) 16:13, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Concur with Dana: FAR is moribund because we don't have enough reviewer (or editor) engagement. If a sweep will fix that, great, but I worry that what would be more likely is an increase in noms with no associated increase in reviews, which would make the problems worse. The solution? Everyone who's commenting here, go review a current FAR or an old FA. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:22, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
  • My first FA, Chat Moss, is also six years old, to the day in fact, and I'm as confident now as I was then that it meets the FA criteria. As SandyG probably remembers I was heavily involved in the GA sweep done three or four years ago. Admittedly there were a lot more articles to check than there would be for an FA sweep, but I think there are a couple of lessons to be learned. First of all it's a lot more work than most here seem to recognise, especially given the declining number of reviewers, and secondly the real danger sign is the disappearance of the article's chief editors. So much for the WP:OWN nonsense. Eric Corbett 17:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Possible date connections for articles

GeeJo has put a lot of time into creating and maintaining a userspace list of possibly relevant dates for TFAs, which he has kindly transferred to WP space at Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page/Date connection. Some of you may find it of interest / use. If you see missing (or wrong) dates or articles (though it should now be free of FFAs and TFAs), please tweak as necessary. Thanks (and belated happy new year) BencherliteTalk 10:15, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Curious

... happenings at Wikipedia:The Day We Fight Back. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:29, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

  • I was just about to raise this to the attention of Bencherlite. I'm really averse to seeing the main page be used for agitprop. We're not here for politics. We're here to focus on building an encyclopaedia. Misplaced priorities and likely to alienate more readers (and users) than necessary.--ColonelHenry (talk) 01:35, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks, both. I had spotted the discussion on Jimbo's talk page and elsewhere but I wondered when those involved in advocating this special day might get round to putting something on WP:CENT or notifying WT:TFA or WT:TFAR, let alone me, and I note that we are still waiting. I also note that when the proposal is put to other parts of the main page's sections' talk pages (e.g. WT:DYK and WT:ITN) there is considerable opposition along the lines that CH has said. And I also note that none of the articles suggested for TFA on that day have anything to do with the theme but have tenuous connections at best. So unless and until there's a strong community consensus for a POV or editorialising main page to include TFA, or someone makes a proposal for a TFA here, I'm not sure there's much to be done except to keep an eye on developments. BencherliteTalk 09:57, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Additionally curious is all the supporters who showed up on Jimbo's talk (wrong place for consensus) with still no one thinking to notify the individual process pages. All very curious. If it matters (without a centralized discussion), I think it's an appalling idea. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:47, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
  • The organisers of this agitation also initially proposed a bunch of articles for the mainpage, putatively for TFA, that are B-class, C-class, or stubs. I wonder what gave them the idea that TFA presents underdeveloped content? This isn't DYK. Go figure...they haven't come to this dark corner of the encyclopaedia. --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:06, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I learned about these happenings--namely the discussion on Jimbo's talk page--reading the rantings at Wikipediocracy.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:08, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
(I agree about the agitprop). How (where) should we get this properly discussed? Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't think that's going to be necessary, but it should have been at WP:CENT all along. (Glad I gave you a predictable smile, Bencherlite :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:28, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Sandy...also WP:PUMP used to be a place frequented by many to discuss these things, but I'll admit...like many others, I can't think of more that one time I've gone there for anything. I didn't even know WP:CENT existed until reading the comment above. --ColonelHenry (talk) 16:14, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
Not curious. Absolutely nothing has been "decided" and absolutely nothing will be decided outside of status quo without notify the entire editor community. I'm sorry you here weren't notified earlier, this isn't going to be some late night back-room decision. If we do anything different to the mainpage on february 11, all our readers will know we did something different. And that means all our editors will know we did something different. And that means we are going to find out how all those editors FEEL about doing something different BEFORE we do anything different. And if it's a bad idea, you don't have to do ANYTHING to stop it, because the natural consensus process will see the proposal rejected. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:04, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
  • @HectorMoffet: - This will not be a pleasant response. Well, if you want to get a community wide consensus, you're doing a bang-up bad job of it. The rollout on this idea is just about as bad as the US government's rollout of the Obamacare website. So far, all I see is five editors with pie-in-the-sky ideas to use Wikipedia for a political purpose (yeah, that blackout was hated by way too many of us...), and then still no respectful coordination with the sections of the project you want to impact (just a lot of talk about overriding processes). This, I think, has been your only comment at WP:TFA/R on this proposal so far...and the other handful of editors involved in this crazy idea have never shown up to ask what anyone else thinks. It hasn't been proposed at very public places where people find out about these things. If you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a consensus to endorse this idea, you've pretty much alienated a large bloc of people by not getting the word out or approaching it the right way, by continuing to ignore the rules of certain process, by insisting on overriding those processes, proposing things that aren't eligible anyway, and some of your colleagues have bitched because people have had the audacity to oppose the idea. Honestly, I care little about your issues advocacy, hate the idea of politicising Wikipedia and really wish this stupid, pointy-but-pointless idea would be abandoned as quickly as possible so people can get back to improving the encyclopaedia instead of engendering dissent and disaffection. --ColonelHenry (talk) 19:42, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
  • And, before anything read WP:NOTADVOCATE.--ColonelHenry (talk) 23:38, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Old FAs and a couple of suggestions for changes in the points

Moved from WP:TFAR § Hillsboro, Oregon
 – In response to my comments that the article needed updating and the suggested date had a pretty trivial date connection

All deadlinks have been fixed; all updated as well. As to picking the coldest date, it's mainly because despite passing nearly five years ago it has never made the mainpage. I find this a bit disturbing with others making it within weeks. Had I known I needed to nominate it I would have, but I figured there was some sort of orderly system to basically promote them on the mainpage in the order in which they are promoted to FA status. Instead we have a rather arbitrary system overall with points and where articles can knock other articles out as if it is some sort of game show. Not only is it confusing, but it clearly favors timing with an anniversary or other date (6 points for 100 years). Maybe its just me, but I think that's the wrong priorities - hell even Google does not care much about round anniversaries. If you want to start a discussion on this, I'd suggest upping the numbers for importance (seriously an article about some minor writer on the 100 anniversary of their birth could trump a "vital" article) and make it 3 points for more than say three years since promotion. This would properly give an advantage to articles that have been around longer (so perhaps they don't get out of date) and to the more important articles. As it is, looking at the current noms (and yes they are on different dates so it doesn't matter much) some short film I would suggest few have heard off outside of Wikipedia has nearly as many points as Bill Russell who gets 15x the page views. Anyway, that is why I went with this arbitrary system and picked a rather arbitrary date that sort of fits with recent cold weather news for much of the rest of the US. Aboutmovies (talk) 23:40, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Aboutmovies, firstly let me say thank you for updating the article as requested. Now let me try and address your points:
  • There are currently over 1,320 FAs awaiting their turn on the main page, or over 31⁄2 years of supply. By my reckoning using a quick AWB check, over 350 of those date from between 2004 and 2008. So even if we were to implement, today, a selection process based entirely on the order of promotion, Hillsboro wouldn't appear until sometime in 2015. That's the scale of the backlog, as it were. So I don't think you should be disturbed that Hillsboro has yet to run, because it's in very good company!
  • FAs don't have to be nominated here to run - in 2013, about 45% of the TFAs came through this page, but in the absence of other suggestions I filled the remaining 55% with my own choices, trying to balance the selection as much as I could. A balanced selection is one of the aims of the point system, of which more later.
  • Yes, some FAs appear within weeks, sometimes because that's specifically requested, sometimes because they're in unusual topic areas where we are short of FAs, sometimes at random to mix the old and new. TFA has never worked on a "first in first out" principle, unlike WP:POTD for featured pictures.
  • I don't agree with your description of TFAR as a "game show" - points help highlight the priority cases for mainpage display, people have their input and then I make the decision (largely in accordance with the views expressed here but not always).
  • TFAs don't have to run on connected dates, and many don't, and there's a specific section for nominations without a relevant date connection. Human nature being what it is, people tend to treat the 50th/100th anniversary as more important than the 49th/99th (for example) and the points system reflects this.
  • You make two specific suggestions for improving the points - 3 points for articles more than 3 years old (to complement the 1- and 2-point bonuses for younger articles) and increasing points for importance (widely covered, vital articles, core topics - currently 2, 4 and 6). I don't know how many possible TFAs are "widely covered" but about 25 are vital artices and 0 are core topics. What do others think of these suggestions? BencherliteTalk 15:00, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Bencherlite, is it still correct to say that increasing the points for core or vital topics will result in no change, since they pretty much always have enough points to run anyway? And how often is an old topic declined for lack of points? In other words, my response would be to defer to you on whether these changes will make any difference, or if they would be just changes for the sake of change. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Out of curiosity, Bencherlite, how many vital articles ran in the last year...Duino Elegies became a vital article after it ran on TFA, the recently-scheduled MacArthur is a Vital Article. If we're talking about under 5 articles, and none of them have been an issue as to date selection (or competition over their date), isn't this largely a non-issue? I'd be against raising the points for older articles--because of the quality issues that some of the older article have been fraught with. Maybe if an older article is improved and polished to "bring it up to code" before being proposed at TFA, it should be awarded points. From my understanding, the point structure only aids in deciding when two articles bump up against each other in competing for a date...how often does that happen? I don't really consider a specific date when I propose an article at TFA--while a relevant date is nice, I'd rather see the article given its due glory and could care less about celebrating a birthday.--ColonelHenry (talk) 16:36, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
I think it is highly beneficial for TFAs to come up on important days for the subject matter. That makes it very educational to the readers. BollyJeff | talk 17:25, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Then again, I just noticed the "On this day" section of the main page that "features" articles that are not necessarily FA or even GA. Huh. BollyJeff | talk 17:28, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Bolly...I noticed an FAC a few weeks ago (that failed, thankfully), where the editor created about 30 other language articles that were nothing more than one-sentence stubs using translate.google.com. I often pondered whether that was to meet "widely covered" at TFA.--ColonelHenry (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Haha, it wasn't me. I was actually hoping that someone would create a new version of Sholay so that it would hit the magic number and give me another point for TFA. The system does give the impression of a bit of game. BollyJeff | talk 17:57, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Vital articles at TFA in 2013 (I've not checked if VA status was added after TFA or for VAs losing VA status after TFA day)
  1. Amanita muscaria - TFAR NSD
  2. Auriga (constellation) - TFAR NSD
  3. Benjamin Britten - TFAR
  4. Canis Minor - me
  5. Carmen - TFAR NSD
  6. David Bowie - me
  7. Dodo - me
  8. Duino Elegies - TFAR NSD
  9. Elephant - me
  10. Franz Kafka - TFAR
  11. Hyderabad - TFAR NSD
  12. Jesus - me
  13. Koala - TFAR NSD
  14. Manhattan Project - TFAR
  15. Messiah (Handel) - TFAR
  16. Middle Ages - me
  17. Niels Bohr - TFAR
  18. Richard Nixon - TFAR
  19. Richard Wagner - TFAR
  20. Sea - TFAR DSN
  21. The Rite of Spring - TFAR

Marked as (N)on(S)pecific(D)ate nominations at TFAR, regular TFAR nominations, or my picks. BencherliteTalk 21:12, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Thanks for the walk-back on that. I said "I think" because I remember reading a news piece it was the oldest article, which has stuck in my mind and which I never verified. Nevertheless, it is among the oldest[4] which still supports my point--it has been a long time coming to TFA.--ColonelHenry (talk) 16:00, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Bencherlite - just to be clear, this was never meant as an indictment of you. This were my thoughts/observations based upon coming here. I completely understand the difficulty you have with attempting to balance the selections. At Portal: Oregon I basically have the same role, in that I am pretty much the only editor who keeps it up-to-date. Most of that is simply adding new content as it reaches FA/GA and then letting the random portal component run its course. But, on the DYKs when I put together a set I try to balance the four hooks so they are not all Portland-centric or all biographies, and in general have a balanced representation within each set. But I also have another priority as well, and that is trying to add them in the order they are received. As in the DYKs are ones that pass at the Wikipedia-wide DYK, and are then added to a holding area so I can then try to mix and match some, but ultimately my goal is to get them into the que so they can get their due. But that's my process, but as I will explain below in a hypothetical/story, there is a reason.
  • Have you ever flown on a commercial airline? If you have, then you likely have waited at the gate waiting to board the plane. Generally speaking, they have process in which you load the back of the plane first and work their way forward, with a few exceptions such as handicapped people or other special situations. Everyone understands this. But by god if someone were to go out of order, you know all the other passengers would be pissed off. As in, nobody likes it when someone cuts in line. It pisses them off. So here, in regards to TFA, where something that just passed recently runs ahead of older ones, its a bit annoying. It doesn't seem fair. As with the plane hypo, some exceptions are fine, but to me, the main goal should be based more upon time since promotion. You've said nothing above that would indicate that with the 55% that you are selecting sua sponte have any component relating to how long they have been an FA. So, it's not really about getting Hillsboro listed now, it is that in my opinion that the time component should be more important. In fact, if Hillsboro does not run until 2018, I don't care much as long as it is because it is waiting in line like everyone else. But's that's going off my notion that each FA should get its day in the sun. If that is not the goal, so be it, but we may want to re-assess the goal, much as DYK had to reevaluate itself with the addition of recent GAs after years of debate on the topic.
  • Lastly, I've heard concerns over quality of the older FAs, but quite frankly we have a process for that and it seems a bit unfair to simply exclude based upon that. For comparison purposes, at DYK if someone thinks an article is not notable, we do not exclude it, but will only put it on hold once it is nominated for deletion; as a member of the bar I am not allowed to just make allegations regarding someone else violating a bar rule, instead I am required to file a complaint. Thus, if someone thinks an old article is not up to the standards, they should simply send it to FAR and be done with it. If it passes FAR, great, then let it run; if it doesn't, then its no longer an FA and can't run.
  • But those are my thoughts, take them for what they are worth. Aboutmovies (talk) 08:09, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Don't worry, I wasn't taking your comments personally. I think your airline analogy is flawed, though, because the airline doesn't have rules/guidelines about how many people from country X, country Y and country Z (or people with hobbies J, K and L etc) ought to be allowed on the same flight, or how close they are allowed to sit to each other, and you don't have a relatively limited pool of potential elite passengers allowed to fly with the company. In my 55%, I do try to take older ones as well as more recent ones but I don't set myself quotas. You mention FAR, but actually FAR is only the second stage of the process - the first stage is normal editing/discussion on the talk page. If someone says here or at the article "this article has the following issues that need to be addressed before we can hold it up on the main page as an example of Wikipedia's finest work", then those points will be heard - while I don't run articles that are actually listed at FAR, I don't think we need to go as far as saying (in effect) "list it at FAR or those points are invalid objections to it being TFA". BencherliteTalk 10:55, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
Every time I fly, they tend process first class and business class first. Which I think is an appropriate analogy...some FAs are in great condition to go (newer ones, older ones that haven't deteriorated from standards), other's have to wait to get on (older ones needing improvement). It's also worth mentioning to Aboutmovies that we've discussed doing a sweep of older FAs because some of the older ones are problematic--perhaps he/she could consider becoming part of that solution.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:02, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

moved from above, because it was in the middle of my original long reply and I'd rather not have it broken up further. Bollyjeff is asking how is it possible that there are 1,320 FAs yet to run on the main page. BencherliteTalk 19:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

How is this possible? I don't see FAs getting promoted every day, and yet there is obviously a TFA every single day. It takes a lot of the incentive away from participating in the grueling process of taking an article from GA to FA if it never appears as a TFA. BollyJeff | talk 16:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
In 2013, FAC promoted 390 FAs and the net total of FAs yet to appear on the main page increased by 15 (i.e. 375 FAs were either used at TFA or demoted before being run at TFA). The backlog has been steadily at the 1,320 or 1,330 mark since at least 31st Dec 2010, which is as far back as I have looked. Short of running 2 or more TFAs per day, there's nothing that I can do to make a serious dent in the numbers. BencherliteTalk 16:37, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Is it possible to consider 2 per day for a while to clear the backlog? BollyJeff | talk 18:00, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't think this is a good idea. If every article is supposed to get its day in the sun, having to share it with a second simultaneous TFA dilutes the honour--and likely would cause viewership to suffer for both articles. There always will be a backlog. Some editors who get an article through FAC think the process is automatic or that they don't have anything else to do with an article. That's part of why a backlog exists. From what I've seen, the odds are if an article isn't brought to TFA in three months post-promotion, it languishes for years before being brought up for TFA. --ColonelHenry (talk) 18:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
According to Bencherlite, if I understood correctly, its not that they are not nominated, its that there are just too many articles waiting to ever get through them all. I nominated one of my articles twice now, and it has not made it. BollyJeff | talk 18:32, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
And both times you have nominated them at times when several other film-related articles have been in the running and (certainly this time round) got more support. I'm sorry about that. There's a limit to what I can do to maintain a balance of TFA choices over time and also keep all the FA writers happy, whether articles are nominated or not. Sometimes, of course, people want their article to "languish" unused either because they're in no rush to put up with the nonsense/unhelpful attention that goes with being TFA, or so that it can hit a more exciting date anniversary rather than be used in the next available TFA slot, or no doubt for other reasons. The backlog exists not because people don't nominate but because there are too many articles at FA to say that all FAs will be run within, say, 12 months or even 3 years of promotion. If all the oldest (or newest) FAs had been nominated and chosen in 2013 instead of the ones that were run, we would still have exactly the same backlog size, just with a different age profile. Backlog is one word - "luxury of choice" is another way of looking at it. If I want a TV episode for TFA, for balance, then I have a choice of over 50 unused TFAs rather than whatever happened to be promoted last month. BencherliteTalk 19:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm one of those editors who would prefer his articles appear on anniversaries. I'm happy to let my past FAs "languish" in the "backlog" for that reason. If "too many" articles in a certain theme appear "too close" to one another, Talk:Main Page starts to blow up with comments. If we keep a regular cycle of diverse topics, those complaints are minimized. That's why the pool of choices is a good thing. It's not a "backlog" that we have to "clear", and in fact, we'd never want to run out of choices! Imzadi 1979 → 04:33, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I didn't mean that not nominating an FA at TFA superseded the numbers...Anyone could see that 390FAs promoted in a year adds at least 25 articles to the backlog at a minimum assuming that all new ones run within the next year. One FA that was promoted in December already ran at TFA in 2006 (Charles I...which I nominated here a few weeks ago before realizing it was already in the spotlight), and I expect it's not the only one...so the analysis of those 390 is adjusted as Bencherlite pointed out above. I intended it mentioning the failure to nominate as one explanation for a number of the articles in backlog and apologise if it implied it was the only reason. However, just last week we had a guy say "I didn't know I had to nominate it"...and that's not the first time I've heard that sentiment. There's one FA in the pile from 7 or 8 years ago that has never appeared that I wrote under a different username...it's no where ready for prime time and ought to be demoted...but back then I didn't know how to get it put in the queue for an appearance on the main page.--ColonelHenry (talk) 05:44, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Bencherlite "Luxury of Choice"...that's an apt euphemism. I would have said "inventory" or that "we have particular item in stock"--ColonelHenry (talk) 05:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
I am of the feeling to get them up as soon as possible for two reasons. Firstly, the article is as good as it can be right after FAC. As you mentioned, after some years they degrade. Secondly, it is a reward for the editor(s) who worked on getting the article up to FA status to see it at TFA. In my case, after two nominations, I will probably give up now, unless I can remember to nominate them in a couple years when they hit an anniversary date. I will also not be very eager to work on new FAs. BollyJeff | talk 14:19, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
If I may say so, I find your attitude to be very disappointing. The point of producing an FA isn't for the promise of a front-page appearance but to write the best encyclopedia article you possibly can on a subject that for whatever reason has caught your eye. That is surely its own reward? And believe me, if you ever do get an article featured on the main page you'll likely discover very quickly that it's not much of a reward anyway after a few hours of fending off the inevitable vandalism such exposure all too often results in. Eric Corbett 14:55, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Eric's sentiment. It's not the appearance that really matters (while it is nice, that's not the goal), it's the feeling confident that the information readily accessible about something you care about--be it a book, a movie, a poem, a historical figure...a mushroom, even--is at the best it can be and that people are able to benefit from it. The TFA appearance is just icing on the cake--drawing people in so that they may, someday, have the interest in it that you do. Teachers enjoy teaching when they see a student has been inspired. I would encourage you to keep working towards bringing articles to FA status because the article subject deserves to be presented...when you look at it that way, the appearance, the plaudits or an "attaboy" here or there does not really matter. Let knowledge grow, and life be enriched (UChicago's motto).--ColonelHenry (talk) 16:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
You guys may make good points, but your cannot change how a person feels. Maybe call it 'Best Article'. Calling it 'Featured Article' gives the impression that it will someday be Today's 'Featured Article'. I noticed that someone has put up another film article already, and it is gaining supports, probably because it is more interesting than the one that I chose to work on. That tells me that the game is played by working only on interesting topics. If this is encouraged, then I think pretty soon the non-interesting topics will get neglected, and you will have an encyclopedia that is not very well balanced. Maybe I am off base with this theory, but it is how I feel. BollyJeff | talk 01:22, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Hey, as a guy who doesn't really write articles on "interesting topics" to most people...Doctor Who characters would trounce one of my poetry articles by a factor of 10 or 12...I really think you should give it another try. I'd rather see something obscure.--ColonelHenry (talk) 01:46, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Fuck on the main page

I was surprised to see Fuck (film) nominated for TFA. I thought there was long-standing consensus that these kinds of articles were not main-page-eligible. For instance, I remember seeing (long ago) a discussion that said Jenna Jameson would not be eligible for TFA. Has consensus changed about this? (Excellent job on the "Fuck" article, BTW). Joefromrandb (talk) 13:18, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

  • It would be hard to imagine this could be more controversial than the Human Centipede TFA was. That said, there will be a great deal of irony on T:MP when this runs from people wanting to censor an article on a movie about censorship because it uses the word "fuck". Resolute 15:00, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Resolute and Crisco 1492 have said it well. I say we fucking run it. I don't see a big deal. We fucking celebrated Frank's Cock without much of a fucking hullabaloo, we can fucking deal with what I anticipate will be incredibly minor fucking outrage over fuck. Most fucking readers will fucking chuckle and give the article 30 fucking seconds. It's not like any of them haven't heard the fucking word. Censoring a movie on censorship, that's fucked up. :-) --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Comment: I agree with above comments by Resolute, Crisco 1492, and ColonelHenry. Prior TFAs have indeed included The Human Centipede and Frank's Cock. I also agree with the comments expressed above about the inherent irony in possibly censoring a film about censorship, while sending the message that other films such as The Human Centipede are totally okay on the Main Page. Thanks very much to Joefromrandb for the kind words about my quality improvement efforts: "Excellent job on the "Fuck" article, BTW". I really appreciate that a lot, thank you! — Cirt (talk) 16:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Comment on protection - It goes without saying, I would hope, that there ought to be a little more protection than usual on this article to prevent the puerility of various chuckling sprogs. Reminded of the discussion over Jesus on 25 December, but this situation is much more intensely unique.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:18, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Added to WP:CENT: [5] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:21, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, SandyGeorgia, — Cirt (talk) 19:37, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Fuck (film) nomination closed in favour of running the article

Thank you to all those who participated in the discussion - too many for me to thank individually. I have decided that the clear consensus (not just in numerical terms but also the strength of the arguments) was in favour of the article running at TFA, and it will do so in the near future. I have set out my reasons and archived the discussion at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Fuck (film). BencherliteTalk 22:56, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for a decision that you supported well, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:06, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks very much for your most detailed and well-thought-out rationale. — Cirt (talk) 04:15, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for an excellent, Solomonic decision...and an entertaining TFAR that had more f-bombs than The Wolf of Wall Street.--ColonelHenry (talk) 04:35, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Wow, sounds like I gotta see that film. — Cirt (talk) 04:36, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Regarding Wolf, a Wikipedia list on movies dropping the f-bomb drove all the news reporting on the movie's expletive count (although wikipediocracy questioned the accuracy of the count, and the laziness of the media not fact-checking).--ColonelHenry (talk) 04:48, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

TFAIMAGE template

Gertie

I'm pleased to say that, with help from Technical 13 (to whom my thanks are repeated), the {{TFAIMAGE}} template has been upgraded to handle |border=yes for those occasional occasions where the image needs a border round it (e.g. mainly white images, as here). BencherliteTalk 22:01, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Looks very nice! Are there any TFA scheduled blurbs where it's already being used, so we can see an example? :) — Cirt (talk) 22:07, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Gertie
  • (edit conflict) No problem, it also supports custom css borders if that is ever needed (and for those technically and css inclined, you could tack extra css to the end like I did here to align it to the right and give it a little padding). — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 22:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Cirt, I've retro-fitted Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 8, 2014 to use this (David Levy added a border the traditional way on the blurb's TFA day, which is what made me realise the template needed upgrading). Technical 13, don't put ideas like that into the heads of the TFA regulars, or I'll be fighting off flashing green polka dot borders for months!!! BencherliteTalk 22:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 8, 2014 looks great, thanks for that helpful example! — Cirt (talk) 22:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
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