Wikipedia talk:Featured articles/Archive 11

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 9

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A review of older FA before they appear on the main page re: Something

There has been some critical comment regarding the quality of the Something article which appeared on the main page today 2 Oct. Something was granted FA status on August 17, 2004, which is over four years ago, when standards were not as high as today. It went through a Review in March 2006 with concerns then for the quality and passed on April 10, 2006 after some refs were added. When it appeared on the main page today it had been over two years since it was last critically examined, and it fell far short of the standard we'd expect today for a FA. It was largely unsourced, poorly structured, and was far from complete as it didn't even contain the basic information of recording dates. As this article was presented as an example of "the best that Wikipedia has to offer" and we claim that "All featured content undergoes a thorough review process to ensure that it meets the highest standards and can serve as an example of our end goals" it might be appropriate to introduce a process whereby a FA that is over, say, 12 months old undergoes at least a quick review before appearing on the main page so it can checked for matching current standards. SilkTork *^YES! 17:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I've just had a look around and I found this: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. This indicates that Something did go through a review process. What I haven't found yet is an archive of the !voting that took place. SilkTork *^YES! 17:13, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I've looked and it appears that not all articles go through that request process, and there's no evidence in the immediate history that I could see that Something went through the request process. I'm in the dark here, and wondering if there is already an overview process that I am not aware of. SilkTork *^YES! 17:27, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

When Raul looks for something, any current featured article which hasn't appeared before is an option. WP:TFAR is mainly for requesting articles with a particular date tie-in. Given enough lead time, some editors do touch up older FAs before they run as "today's featured article". Gimmetrow 17:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Maintenance task

Would another editor be interested in monitoring the bot that bolds the mainpage article? It has been busted for three days now, and mainpage entries haven't been bolded. I notify the bot owner of this several times a month and would welcome some help. It means watching this page, make sure the bot runs each night at 0:00 UTC, if not, bold the article manually and notify the bot owner. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:25, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, sure. Should this include Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page? –thedemonhog talk • edits 03:50, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

That page is completely unmaintained and inaccurate (meaning, FAs promoted, deleted or featured on the main page haven't been added to or removed from that page since Sept 1); the accurate record is kept by the bot on this page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:12, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The bot has been fixed. –thedemonhog talk • edits 01:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

For now :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Flagged revisions

Posting a notice here that the FAs are being discussed for the first trial run of flagged revisions. The discussion is here. Cla68 (talk) 21:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Question

What happens when there are no more featured articles left? CTDU (talk) 22:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. The number of featured articles has been steadily growing; there is no reason to think we would ever fall to zero. Pagra shtak 23:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm just saying surely the day will come when there will be nothing left to feature, unless they start featuring former feature articles. CTDU (talk) 02:50, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

In the unlikely event we run out of featured articles, then I will put my long-discussed feature into action and replace/augment the daily FA with a daily kitten feature ;) Raul654 (talk) 02:54, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

If we stopped producing featured articles today, the kittens would have to wait almost three years. Then they'll be cats. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:01, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with a kitten is that
When it grows up, it's always a cat.

—Ogden Nash

—Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Main page featured articles

The following question may seem rather trivial, but I wanted to inquire about it anyway. I'm wondering in what manner the intro of a main page featured article is constructed on the actual Wikipedia main page. I'm only asking because I noticed that the introductory content on the main page portion of a featured article doesn't always match the introductory content on the actual featured article itself. For example, in today's (November 12, 2008) main page featured article, Joe Sakic, the main Wikipedia page mentions that Sakic has Croatian origin; yet, in the actual article itself, there's no mention of it in the intro. Directly before the article was displayed on the main page (as in the day before the article got on the main page), there was no mention of his Croatian origin either. It may have been mentioned in the intro of the article a while back, which is why I'm wondering just how the introductory content on main page featured articles is constructed. From what point in the article's edit history is the introductory content taken? -- Luke4545 (talk) 21:08, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The blurbs are usually written by User:Raul654, the Featured article director: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-08-18/Dispatches. You might get a faster and more direct answer to your query by asking at Talk:Joe Sakic. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The Internet Movie Database as a Reliable Source

Over a year ago, an attempt was made to set a policy on the situations in which IMDb could be used as a reliable source (if any). The discussion is here WP:CIMDB. A heated debate on this has just started up again and a large part of the debate has centred around whether FA articles do or should use IMDb as a source under any circumstances. Anyone wanting to contribute is invited to do so: here. GDallimore (Talk) 11:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Major depressive disorder

FAC disccusion directed to Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#MDD. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:20, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Question on criteria for medical articles

I would like to clarify whether WP:MEDRS or WP:IAR applies to a medical article. On Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Major depressive disorder, which is an official diagnostic classification from the American Psychiatric Association diagnositic manual, the popular vote is that WP:IAR takes precedent over WP:MEDRS. Is this the case for all medical articles? —Mattisse (Talk) 01:11, 23 November 2

Could you be more specific? And no offense, but the word you're looking for is precedence. II | (t - c) 02:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Pierre Gerlofs Donia

Please make Pierre Gerlofs Donia a featured article? Jouke Bersma _{Contributions} 08:26, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

It is not currently at featured quality, and has twice failed WP:GAN; a peer review would be the next step before re-considering WP:GAN or later WP:FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

It does not have to pass GA first. If I'll nominate it it'll get so much attention it will be worked on by many more editors and it'll be GA before ya know it! 10:36, 28 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jouke Bersma (talk • contribs)

Correct, it doesn't have to pass GA first, but an article that has twice failed GA is not likely to be ready for FAC. See the first step in the WP:FAC nominating instructions: "Before nominating an article, ensure that it meets all of the FA criteria ... " See WP:FCDW/March 17, 2008 for tips on how to achieve a helpful peer review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

If you would read the article carefully you would see my point. Jouke Bersma _{Contributions} 08:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

What do the italics mean?

Some of the articles on the list are italicized. Should we indicate what this means somewhere?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 04:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:ITALICS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, now I feel silly that I didn't consider the obvious. However, it was less than intuitive because MediaWiki doesn't offer an option for italicizing article titles, and I've become quite used to reading article titles in plain font.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 04:55, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the italics. The Literature section has a list of articles, not a list of books. Book titles are italicized, but the article titles aren't. That 'the article titles are supposed to be italicized but aren't because of a MediaWiki shortcoming' and 'this is list is correcting this MediaWiki shortcoming,' is the explanation I tell myself. -maclean 06:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

And having to add the italics when I'm promoting/archiving with five to six tabs open is a pain :-) But the folks seem to want them, and someone adds them even when Raul and I don't. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:38, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Non-Featured Articles marked as FA?

I have come across an article (actually, a redirect!)—Krendang—which is marked as "FA" on its talk page, when it clearly isn't. I am new around here and hesitate to go around removing the tag myself in case of some sort of mistake; could someone more knowledgable please look into this?

Additionally, I wonder: is there any easy way to find out if there are any other articles incorrectly marked as "FA"? //Programming gecko (talk) 00:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

That page is not tagged as a featured article. It has a wikiproject tag with a FA class rating which may have been a typo for NA. Feel free to change it. Pages like these could be found with a script if someone felt inclined to write it. Gimmetrow 01:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This page is the definitive list. If it's not on this list, yes, please remove any talk page notes that say so. Raul654 (talk) 03:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I just tried to do a comparison of Category:Wikipedia featured articles and Category:FA-Class articles (recursive); it fails because (1) the pages for several subcategories of the latter have *links* to categories (see Category:FA-Class Prison Break articles) that foil recursing; and (2) many wikiprojects' banners aren't coded for class=FL so they fudge it with class=FA for list articles. I've successfully done audits before to check for non-FAs that have an FA star, but unfortunately I don't see a quick way of looking for 'wrong' FA-class assessments without cleaning up those category problems first. Maralia (talk) 03:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking someone could take a prefix search of "Category:FA-Class*"[1] and just check the articles in those categories without further recursion. (Should someone bring Category:FA-class carnivorous plant articles in line with the norm, capitalizing "Class"?) Gimmetrow 04:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, WP:FA currently says there are 2387 FAs, but Category:Featured articles claims to have only 2328 articles in it. Actually retrieving all members of the category there are 2387 members and every FA here is in the category. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:03, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Virgin Killer

I think the clearest signal of wikipedia's commitment to no censorship should be to put Virgin Killer by Scorpions as the featured article on the main page ASAP. For those of you outside Britain, this is an important battle for freedom of speech, given it's the first time an enelected, unaccountable censorship body with no judicial power or authority has blocked a page on such a prominent site. Forcing them to back down is vital in this case. Jw2034 (talk) 14:55, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Make it a featured article, then we'll talk. Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia, not a campaigner against censorship. GreenReaper (talk) 20:24, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

A little disappointed

I'm a little disappointed in the quality control here, at least when it comes to yesterday's article, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami. I haven't given it the fine tooth comb, but in a few hours of casual perusal I have found a copyrighted image, 2 separate instances of text copyright violations (copying complete or multiple sentences from the cited sources), completely unsourced bold claims, sources attached to sentences that don't support the sentences, and a little bit of original research. I wish I had more time and resources to help out (not just improving this article, but with reviewing future FA candidates). But I guess I'll just be one of those people who complains and doesn't do anything about it ;) -Andrew c ^[talk] 04:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not unusual for an article to change after it is promoted to FA status - it is up to interested parties to ensure that the article remains of high quality. Further deterioration almost always occurs while the articles are on the main page, because anyone can (and often does) add anything they want. Articles whose quality deteriorates too much can be taken to Featured article review. Or, if you can help User:NancyHeise fix that article, that would also be great :) And you don't have to have a huge amount of free time to review featured article candidates - one review a week or a month would still be beneficial! Karanacs (talk) 15:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I've worked with Nancy to address nearly all of my major concerns. But I'm pretty sure all of these concerns existed during the FAC. Anyway, sorry to vent here.-Andrew c ^[talk] 04:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Adding Good Articles to the main page

There is a relevant discussion involving the redesign of the main page that may affect the size and presentation of the Feature Article box going on here Wikipedia_talk:2008_main_page_redesign_proposal#Introducing_GA_to_main_page. Some of the ideas proposed include creating a separate WP:FA-like box to feature the GA, incorporating GA into DYK or not including GA on the main page at all. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 18:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure it would be good to have a GA get the same front page coverage as an FA. But it would be nice to see the recent list of GA promotions appear in the notices section of the community bulletin board.—RJH (talk) 21:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Sub-sections?

It'd be nice to see some of the larger FA sections get sub-sectioned. At present there is considerable imbalance between the section sizes, so perhaps sub-divisions would help? Looking at sections like Biology, some of the fundamental concept articles (DNA, Genetics, Evolution, Cell nucleus, &c.) are buried among a huge number of species articles. Similarly for 'Geography and places', the nations are somewhat concealed among the cities, parks and other locales. In 'Geology, geophysics and meteorology', there is a large number of weather articles hiding a handful of geology pages.

Any thoughts? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 21:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think exactly the same way and made the same suggestion some time ago. You can see my proposol for subsections for Biology and Video Games here at User:Novil Ariandis/Featured articles with subcategories. (The listing itself is outdated, it's from 1 August 2008.) --Novil Ariandis (talk) 10:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Biology was just divided; for maintenance purposes, we don't want a page that looks like WP:GA. Until a category reaches about 200, I wouldn't advocate division. (I can't speak for Raul654, but I believe he agrees, since extra divisions make page maintenance much harder.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:02, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't recall the biology section being divided, so I went back and looked; the categories appear to be identical today to the way they were months ago. (I compared them to July 2008.) Was there a division that was reversed? Mike Christie (talk) 11:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

No, the change wasn't reversed; in July 2008, we split what was previously "Biology and medicine" into "Biology" and "Health and medicine" because the category was approaching 200. (I'm not in favor of creating numerous smaller categories yet, as they are so much harder to maintain; as far as I know Raul agrees, but I should't speak for him.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, that explains it -- I'd thought "just divided" meant a more recent event, but given the fairly slow evolution of the page I see what you mean. Thanks for clarifying. Mike Christie (talk) 15:29, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a feeling this section is smiliar to a previous one i did. See Wikipedia talk:Featured articles/Archive 10#Idea on sections. Simply south not SS, sorry 11:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Please add this to more related pages

{{editprotected}}

Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection

It took me nearly an hour to find this, and I was deliberately searching. In the Wikipedia namespace, exactly 0 articles with "Featured" in their names (which weren't redirects or even self-links) link to that page. --68.161.181.109 (talk) 09:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Disabling request—please be more specific. "Add this to more related pages" could mean a number of things. Also, please use {{Editsemiprotected}} when requesting a change to a semi-protected page. {{Editprotected}} is for fully-protected pages only. Pagra shtak 15:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Specific: Add a link to Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection to this page. --68.161.181.109 (talk) 15:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

. Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection is not protected. Martin 18:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Images

I was wondering whether i should create some simplistic images to distinguish between FAs, FLs, FIs, FS, FVs (if that exists), FPs and FTs? I was just thinking something like e.g. red L on Image:LinkFA-star.png to distinguish lists and a camera on LinkFA-star.png to show Featured pictures. Simply south not SS, sorry 12:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Not sure, but you would get more feedback if you posted the query at WT:FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll post notices across the lot and redirect them here later. Simply south not SS, sorry 15:06, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Featured topics and good topics already have their own icons: File:Cscr-featuredtopic.svg and File:Support cluster.svg. Not sure what an FV is. I assume by FI, you mean featured pictures? Dabomb87 (talk) 22:15, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, just something i saw once with FV (featured video). Simply south not SS, sorry 22:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

By the time you reach this point it has been too late

One suggestion

I suggest to move articles about chronicles to section History from section Literature---Vojvodae ist 17:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistency between FA count and actual number of FAs?

WP:FA says that there are 2403 FAs, but when I run Dr pda's script, I get 2405 FAs (see User:Dabomb87/Drafts). Is there a reason for the discrepancy? Dabomb87 (talk) 16:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

This page is correct; Dr pda may be counting other things (like featured lists ... some WikiProjects don't distinguish between FAs and FLs). It would be best to ask the Doc. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The generatestats script seems to use {{featured article}}. There was a non-FA page with the star. Perhaps there was another, or the generatestats script might have been run after an article was removed by FAR but before the star was removed. Gimmetrow 01:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright, the discrepancy is gone. Thank you! Dabomb87 (talk) 04:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

physics & astronomy

What about to separate "physics & astronomy", as here: [2]? I think so for 3 reasons:

in italian wikipedia the two section "physics & astronomy" are separated;
the articles related to astronomy are IMHO too much respect to physics ones, so I think they can stay separated.
the list of featured articles are IMHO difficult to read at the moment. I suggest to give some classification, as on the majority of the others wikipedia (it, fr, de, ru, pl, pt, ...), and to add some icons (the majority of the others wikipedia have icons), too. I think this is a paradox: the english featured articles are a lot, related to the other wikis, but the featured articles on others wikis are better ordered... --Aushulz (talk) 04:46, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Featured Article interest level

I'm not an editor but I'm a almost-daily user of Wikipedia and I'd just like to say that the choices for featured article on the home page are getting more and more boring and obscure. I don't know why the philosophy changed about this but the featured article used to be great, because it was often about a subject that maybe you knew something about but not everything of course -- so you would click on, let's say, the article about moths, and you'd read a whole lot of fascinating stuff about moths you never knew and -- well, fun ensued. However these days the featured article is nearly always something really, really obscure and specific. You know, like there will be an entire article about the 12th clause of the treaty that ended the Mexican-American war. Not the article on the war, that would be interesting -- just an article about one tiny specific aspect of it.

Why are you folks doing this? I saw somebody else said on this discussion board "what are you going to do when you run out of featured articles" -- sounds silly to think that this could ever be the case but it certainly appears like you're running out of subjects because the articles just keep getting more and more granular.

My hunch is that you're not running out of things to feature -- I think instead what's happening is that you're making the requirements more and more strict for a featured article. So since it's harder to exhaustively address a big topic (like the entire history of the automobile) and easier to address a smaller subject (like exactly what type of hat Lincoln was wearing when he was shot) your featured articles are just getting more boring as time goes on.

Maybe you should think about loosening up a bit and letting some of the fun back in. And if you DO run out of things to feature, bring back some old favorites. Saxbe fix? I can't get interested in that. Even the article admits that it's uncontroversial.

Okay that's my spiel. Don't bother flaming me because I'm not even going to come back to this thread to read your reply. Take my advice or not, as you wish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.204.157.231 (talk) 05:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the subjects are getting more boring, but loosening the criteria is not the answer. Anyway, anyone can comment on TFA candidates at WP:TFAR. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Featured article candidates#Core vs. obscure might be of interest. Pessimists (including me) think "core topics" are "Herculean tasks" (another pessimist's words), while some optimists are going for a "throw down" (of the gauntlet).

To some extent I agree with Dabomb87's "loosening the criteria is not the answer". I strongly support WP:V and WP:NPOV, but have reservations about some of the other criteria / guidelines / policies. WP:RS sounds like a good idea, but has problems in practice. WP:MOS is WP:CREEP. I'm quite happy working on fairly big subjects, and might even work on a "core topic" once I think I've learned enough from working on the mid-level articles in the relevant area, but because of WP:MOS I'm unlikely to submit any articles to FAC - if I'm going to spend hours researching something, it will be a subject I'm interested in, not WP:MOS. AFAIK I'm not the only one who thinks that way. --Philcha (talk) 01:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Dabomb87, what are you talking about? Just because the topics aren't mainstream and you probably aren't familiar with them, does not make them uninteresting. Everything is interesting if you look hard enough. I don't see the widening of the topic issues being a problem, so long as we're getting quality articles and it's not detracting from work on the core and most important subjects. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 16:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Possible free image for Megatokyo FA

See here - it's possible that it is the copyright owner who posted there offering a free licensed piece of the article. Somebody may want to follow this, as I will be off to sleep soon. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Longest featured article

Can someone please confirm my edit here - 2007 USC Trojans football team is the 254th longest article on wikipedia according to Special:Longpages. I don't see any featured articles above it in that list. Raul654 (talk) 21:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Whoops, nevermind. The longest are:
Intelligent_design - 182704
General_relativity - 159222
Ronald_Reagan - 157721
2007_USC_Trojans_football_team - 154874

Thanks to the people in the toolserver IRC room. Raul654 (talk) 21:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Note - the query that was used to generate that list is at the bottom. Anyone with toolserver access can re-run it in the future. Raul654 (talk) 21:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured articles/By length. Mzmcbride has set it up to update weekly. Raul654 (talk) 22:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The 10 longest featured articles by byte count (obtained by running User:Dr pda/generatestats.js on articles transcluding {{Featured article}}) are

Intelligent design (178 kB) (Number 104 at Special:Longpages)
General relativity (155 kB) (Number 215)
Ronald Reagan (154 kB) (Number 232)
2007 USC Trojans football team (151 kB)
The Wire (148 kB)
USS Iowa turret explosion (145 kB)
John McCain (144 kB)
2005 Texas Longhorns football team (142 kB)
Major depressive disorder (138 kB)
Schizophrenia (137 kB)

The 10 longest featured articles by readable prose size (using the prose size mode of generatestats.js, full list at User:Dr pda/Featured article statistics) are

Ketuanan Melayu (91 kB)
Society of the Song Dynasty (90 kB)
Tang Dynasty (88 kB)
Ming Dynasty (87 kB)
Byzantine navy (79 kB)
Campaign history of the Roman military (76 kB)
Punk rock (75 kB)
Augustus (75 kB)
Harry S. Truman (74 kB)
Yom Kippur War (70 kB)

Dr pda (talk) 23:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Out of personal curiosity, where does Surrender of Japan rank by readable prose? Raul654 (talk) 23:41, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a bit tricky. My script says the readable prose is 43 kB, but this excludes all the block quotes and bulleted lists (my script only counts what's between <p></p> tags). Adding the quotes and lists probably makes it closer to 50 kB, which would be around 130—150 on the list of FA's by readable prose size. Dr pda (talk) 00:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Music

I've taken the liberty of adding some sub-sections to this - it was getting very hard to navigate, and articles related to music were ending up thrown elsewhere (For instance, dividing off classical music and opera means that we can add a sensible "see also" under literature and theatre, dealing with a major ambiguity for opera). It suspect that we need more divisions of "pop music" but I also suspect it'd be much easier for, say a Metalhead to figure out what should be in a "Metal" category than for me to do it. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

History, warfare, and the like are really in the need for some navigational cleanup, but that isn't quite so obvious as to how it should be done. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm reverting this change for now. We need to gain consensus on the talk page before making any broad-based category changes. They've been pretty stable here for a long time. Karanacs (talk) 12:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I am opposed to any WP:GA-type division of this page into smaller, harder to maintain categories. Once categories reach about 200, then we can discuss how or whether to divide them. We also don't want to clutter this page with things like See also; the purpose of this page is a definitive listing of FAs, and the aim has always been to keep it simple. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

But if you're not interested in pop music, it's very hard indeed to spot the articles that relate to your interests. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Similar can be said of other categories, but a maintenance nightmare such as the system at WP:GA would not serve this page well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Warfare?

Warfare has about 215 articles. About 100 are battles/campaigns/wars. Would it make sense to separate Warfare into two categories - Military campaigns and an unknown misc category that would capture soldiers/ships/history/terms? I don't really care either way, but it may make a difference to those who browse the category. Karanacs (talk) 13:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

hmmm ... I didn't realize it had passed 200. On warfare, I suggest the decision of how to best split it should involve, at minimum, Raul, Kirill, Maralia, Woody and other MilHist coordinators. Unless Raul weighs in soon, we can ping them.

On the other large categories, I've tossed around in the back of my mind another global way to split them (we certainly don't want to fraction music as it was done here ... I have other ideas, but we can talk about those when those cats are large enough to worry about). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Just for everyone's knowledge, I left a message about this at WT:MHCOORD. Apologies for being a TPS'er of Maralia; otherwise, i wouldn't have noticed this :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 15:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

A TPS report? Gimmetrow 17:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Talk Page Stalker -MBK₀₀₄ 18:35, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that we should find a way to avoid creating sub-categories, like WP:GA ... we don't want the page to head that direction. Any split should create a new, stand-alone category. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant what you wrote, I just said it wrong. Karanacs (talk) 16:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps as a variant on Karanacs proposal we could sub-divide into: (1) "Warfare: Conflicts" (wars, battles, campaigns, seiges, rebellions etc); (2) "Warfare: Materiél" (equipment etc); (3) "Warfare: People" ( soldiers etc). This would have plenty of room for expansion. Roger Davies ^talk 16:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

See above. I don't want to start creating multiple sub-cats, as that will head us the direction of the unmanageable WP:GA page. As soon as we do that in one cat, they'll all want to do it. We need to carve out a new, stand-alone category. As a random example (not necessarily something I've thought much about), we could create Maritime, and move everything ship-related out of Warfare and Transport. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Where would, say, the Battle of Midway or other naval battles fall in that example? I'm assuming warfare, but just to make sure... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

As I said, that's not an example I've thought much about ... it's just an idea of how to approach splits. For example, if Music, Media, and Literature and theatre were to approach 200, I would suggest carving out all of the bios in all of those categories to a new Performing artist category, that would include music, media, theatre, dance and all other performing artists, since we have so many of those. The idea is, don't think about creating sub-cats; look for the best way to carve out a new cat. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed that the history section has quite a few articles that would fall under "conflicts" of some sort. There are articles on coups, massacres, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and the Second Crusade. These could potentially be combined with the multitude of "battle" articles that are currently in warfare. "Warfare" could be left for the people/materiel/definitions/overviews, and have another category for "Conflicts" or something like that. Karanacs (talk) 16:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

That's the way to approach this ... don't know if that's the best solution (will leave that to the MilHist people), but the idea is to carve out an entirely new category. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Karanacs proposal sounds like a sensible division. "Battle of..." and similar articles form a distinctive sub-group, and it's difficult to see where else we could make a logical split and still significantly reduce the article numbers for each new category. I can't come up with anything better for the category names that what's already been suggested (and it's not really that important; it's easy enough to change those anyway). EyeSerene^talk 18:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yep, Karanacs proposal is not only sensible for the reasons presented by EyeSerene, but I doubt that anything better will emerge. If this were up to a vote, I'd support. -MBK₀₀₄ 18:46, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that could work (although "Warfare" and "Armed forces" sounds a bit better to my ear than "Conflicts" and "Warfare"). Another possibility might be to split out pre-20th-century warfare, but that might be less elegant of a solution. Kirill ^[pf] 02:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I support the idea of Karanac's groups—battles vs everything else—but like Kirill, I would call them Warfare (battles/events/actions) and Armed forces (everything else). Here's a preview of what this would probably look like: User:Maralia/Warfare. It's a fairly even split. Maralia (talk) 02:36, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think everyone misunderstood Karanacs' proposal; it was to bring in other (non-Warfare) conflicts that are currently in History, creating a new "Conflicts" category, that included battles from Warfare in addition to other conflicts in History. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you're right, I somehow missed that. I wonder if it would result in a category that's already too large at inception. I'll take a look. Maralia (talk) 03:39, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not terrible thrilled with the proposed split. In fact, I don't see *any* good way to split the warfare section. Much as I dislike the prospect, I think if it "Warfare" gets much larger, we might have to bite the bullet and implement subsections. Raul654 (talk) 03:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, a check of MilHist FAs promoted over the last year shows an average of over 8 per month. Granted a few get categorized elsewhere, but not many. Maralia (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Gosh, I hate the idea of beginning with sub-cats, because then every category is going to be in here asking for the same (reference recent changes to Music), and maintaining the page will become a nightmare. I noticed that GA has a group called "Conflicts, battles and military exercises", which seems to be what Karanacs was proposing (pulling also from History); would that not work as a stand-alone category, leaving all the rest of warfare separate? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

"Wars and battles" and "Warfare" might be the easiest separation. Roger Davies ^talk 12:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the variation suggested further up-- put wars, campaigns, and battles in one category, arms in another, with personnel in a third. The division is natural and there is room for expansion. Kablammo (talk) 14:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I rather liked it too, but gathered we couldn't do it. Perhaps the category names just need tweaking a bit.

(1) Conflict (wars, battles, campaigns, seiges, rebellions etc)

(2) Arms, equipment and materiél

(3) People at war (soldiers, heroes, generals, nurses, units)

Thoughts? Roger Davies ^talk 06:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

A feature about the current categorization system is that all the categories are fairly top-level and independent of each other. They're the kinds of categories you would find in a library or traditional paper encyclopedia. Your proposal would be a fine way of splitting the warfare category into subjections, but as top level sections they would run counter to this principle. Raul654 (talk) 07:04, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The best I could come up with was to split the warfare section into one category for conflicts, battles, and operations (in other words, all the events) from the people and equipment (e.g, all the tangible stuff). But even that would break the current scheme where all the category are reasonably differentiated from the others. Raul654 (talk) 18:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What about throwing the military equipment like the battleships, carriers, aircraft, tanks, and such into the transportation section? If its not actively being used for military purposes then its just another way to get from point A to point B, and would lighten the load carried by the warfare section. It appears that there is some precedent for doing this already: the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways act created the US-xx and I-xx routes for defense purposes, which would entail milhist coverage, yet they are here since that is not their primary function. Just something to think about. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:58, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Yuck. I don't care for that idea at all - it mixes things that shouldn't be mixed. Raul654 (talk) 17:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Apologies if this is a stupid question at this stage, but is a category of over 200 articles a real problem? Might it not be simpler just to maintain the status quo? EyeSerene^talk 14:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

It is, at least from a readers perspective, which I hope to provide. I've seen comments above that the list is used as the "de facto" oficial FA list. That's fine, but it should also be remembered that that isn't it's only use. Alot of people like me use it as a browsing tool, to find the best articles the site has produced. From this perspective, a 200+ category is problematic, as it makes finding anything quite dificult. I realise that it might make upkeeping more difficult, but the subcategories idea seems to be the best from a browsing point of view. 189.105.48.37 (talk) 12:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

A quick note, the French for material (if you insist on using the French, why you'd do so is beyond me, you have a perfectly good English word for it, and it's redundant with equipment) is matériel (plural matériels), not materiél.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Options

As I see it, our options are:

Do nothing.
- Is it a problem to have categories with muliple hundreds of articles and no subdivisions? I believe it is. Warfare is already past 200 and adding another 8-12 articles each month. I believe that something is going to have to be done about this sooner or later.
Create new top level categories
- I like this option least of the three. Right now, the category system used here (though admitteldy imperfect) is relatively "compact" and close to something you'd find in a library or a paper encyclopedia. I don't like the idea of creating new top-level categories to accommodate our propensity to produce more of certain types of featured articles (video games, milhist) than others (math)
Create subcats
- I've been against this for years, but I'm starting to come around to the idea. I think inevitably we're going to have to do something, and this is certainly better than more top level categories, IMO. Raul654 (talk) 17:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of creating subcats if we can keep some tight parameters on it, making it clear that we only do it when categories get very large (more than 200), and discouraging the opening of doors to endless fiddling and breaking up of other categories into subcats. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I just counted the articles in the Sports and recreation section, and I believe there are 205 entries. (You can correct me if I miscounted.) I think it should be divided as well, but I shall leave the decision-making up to you all, since it seems like you guys definitely know more than I do about handling this list. --Edge3 (talk) 03:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Out of curiosity...

What featured article has the highest amount of other featured content (FPs and FSes? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

New featured content

I have put forward a proposal for Featured redirects. Any comments at the proposal's talk page would be welcome. — Tivedshambo (t/c) 05:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Graphic graphic

That's a fairly disturbing picture (meningitis) to be plastered on the front page of wikipedia today. Axlrosen (talk) 02:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The best place to take this up is Talk:Main Page. Dicussion is ongoing at Talk:Main Page#Featured Article of the day image. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Categorization

Mumia Abu-Jamal : currently under "History", but better under "Law"?(217.162.207.177 (talk) 01:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

"Warfare" vs "Education"

United States Military Academy is currently listed under "Warfare", but would more properly be listed under "Education". It is a four-year bachelor of science-granting college. The BS degrees are accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Cadets are college students studying the same subjects any other FA-university or colleges do. True, all graduates are commissioned as officers in the military upon graduation, but matriculating cadets are not part of a deployable military formation like most other Army units. Anyone's thoughts? I did not want to be so bold as to change it myself being still somewhat new to Wikipedia (sorry Jimbo) Ahodges7 ^talk 01:42, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, and I've moved that. Karanacs (talk) 13:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Karanacs. (IMO, it could reasonably go in either section.) Raul654 (talk) 14:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The same analysis would go for equivalent military academies in other countries: these people are learning, not fighting. Physchim62 (talk) 19:25, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree if the subject of the learning is an equivelant to a civilian institution. For example, I would not classify Ranger School as "education", but rather "warfare", as the subject being taught is specifically a martial subject. USMA cadets are going to class primarily receiving a broad liberal education in chemistry, physics, mathematics, history, languages and such, not military skills, though military training is a large part of the curriculum. Ahodges7 ^talk 20:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ahodges7. Do we have any other articles of this type currently at FA (I don't think so, but I may have missed one)? Karanacs (talk) 21:00, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

FAR

Originally asked at User talk:MBK004:-

When a FA class article is demoted, why does it have to drop right back to the Stub/Start/C/B system. I'm sure that many FAs which get demoted are at least of GA class. They will have had a lot of work put into them to get them to FA class in the first place and it seems that this is not recognised when an article is delisted.

His reply:-

To answer your question on my talk page, when a GA is promoted to FA, the article looses its GA status and becomes an FA. If the FA is demoted at FAR, since it lost GA status upon promotion to FA, the article at most can be B-Class, and in the cases of the extremely-old FAs which have not been updated even C-class as is the case with Andrea Doria. If you want to inquire more about this, it might be better to ask those at WT:GA and WT:FA or Raul654 as he is the Featured Article Director. -MBK₀₀₄ 03:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite understand why an article that lost its GA class on promotion can't regain it on demotion without having to go through the whole process again. Obviously if it doesn't meet GA criteria on demotion from FA then it will have to drop to the stub/start/C/B system, but if it fails FA but still meets GA, I think it should be able to revert to GA status. What do others think? Mjroots (talk) 05:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Very true, but the reviewers at FAR don't look at the article to determine whether it meets GA standards, only to see if it complies with the FA criteria. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:24, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Almost no articles that fail FAR would pass GAN; we've had this conversation many times on other pages. Most articles fail for lack of citation or comprehensive; they wouldn't pass GA either. The FA process does not do GA evaluations; the articles can re-apply for GA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

As someone who's more in the "GA camp" than the "FA camp", I have to agree with the sentiment so far. GAs lose that status upon promotion to FA. If they later lose FA status through FAR, I would rather have the article go through at least another round of GA review to be sure that it meets the GA criteria, rather than having it be automatically promoted to GA. To put it simply, if an old article has been stale long enough to acquire enough problems that it doesn't pass FAR, it very likely has issues that won't allow it to pass GA as well. That being said, if there are active editors supporting the demoted article, and they feel it meets the GA criteria, there's nothing stopping them from nominating it again at WP:GAN. Dr. Cash (talk) 20:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Dr. Cash's "if an old article has been stale long enough to acquire enough problems that it doesn't pass FAR, it very likely has issues that won't allow it to pass GA as well". In fact few articles I've looked at that were passed as FA before mid-2007 would now pass GA review, mainly because there's too much unreferenced content. --Philcha (talk) 23:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Someone would have to care enough to renominate the article for GA and shepard it through the GA process. —Mattisse (Talk) 23:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I also agree. Having previously been an FA/GA does not infer that it currently meets those standards. Also, leaving as GA would deny the article the benefits of having another GA review (which would usually improve the content). I would not like to see every FAR put through a GA delisting review too. If an interested editor is working through problems at FAR then they can renominate for GA as appropriate. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 14:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Most articles there are 2006 era FAs; some use just any old website trawled up on google, if they are referenced at all. Also with the lax reviewing there, some articles can even get borderline saved even if they would struggle to scrape through modern GA even with a hold. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 00:45, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Poll: autoformatting and date linking

This is to let people know that there is only a day or so left on a poll. The poll is an attempt to end years of argument about autoformatting which has also led to a dispute about date linking. Your votes are welcome at: Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 09:07, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

AfD

See the AfD‎ for Tropical Storm Erick (2007). Note that this is not in any way canvassing—it simply seems courteous to notify the FA regulars about this. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Categorization

This has probably come up before, but wouldn't it make more scene to group religion with philosophy than the current practise of grouping philosophy with psychology and religion with mythology? I can't figure out any reason why what philosophy and psychology would be grouped together, and grouping religion with mythology is kind of insulting to religious people. Psycology might not be big enough to be its own category, but it could be grouped in with health for now. If mythology is too small, it could be grouped with culture for now. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 01:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it has come up before: Wikipedia talk:Featured articles/Archive 8. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It still seems like an odd solution; psychology is a lot closer to health than it is to philosophy. Even if it would mean putting the voodoo psychology in with the health ones as well, I would vote for a move. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Academic article about Featured Articles

At First Monday: [3]. Somebody may CC Signpost for a mention, and add it to WP:ACST, I am bit busy right now. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Significant alterations to Featured Articles

I was looking (unsuccessfully) for some note I saw many moons ago about significant alterations to featured articles. Recently a large chunk of Cane toad was forked off and the article submitted to WP:FAR. I have started a merge discussion as I question the basis of the merge. Question is, is the article now unstable and should it be automoatically de-listed or what? What do folks think? (Also can anyone find teh original note about big changes to FAs?) Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

No it won't be automatically delisted. Some articles got rewritten a lot during FAR, like Shrine of Remembrance and Waterfall Gully. Barack Obama is more unstable than this one. India has also had a big flurry at various times in the past YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 06:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, we have no such thing as an automatic delisting; we give FAs the benefit of the doubt via a deliberative process at FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Even though we will not close the FAR automatically I did raise a concern over the timing of it. The author split part of the article (without discussion) and moments later started the FAR. In my opinion some discussion in the article's talk page would have been more productive.

Main page banner

There is a proposal to mark the 2,500 milestone with a banner on the main page. Any comments and suggestions for the style and wording and welcome over there. Thanks, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Intriguing award aka laying down the gauntlet

This award - Wikipedia:Four Award - raises an intriguing question as to how many as yet unwritten articles that are capable of FA...I'd say a stack of insects and cultivated plants could fill this category. Not sure what else, probably quite a few books and fillums (films, sorry Ceoil - I always chuckled when I heard this on Irish radio when I was there) ;) Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thats roight yeah, like. Incidently, while we have a number of very capable editors, the visual arts community is quite small, and there are still many many major paintings that are still without articles. I find the number of red liks on this page a bit depressing.[4] Ceoil (talk) 13:11, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of that award because I sometimes do New Article -> DYK -> FA, most of the times bypassing GA as a waste of time. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Good to know. So I will skip reviewing your GAs as unnecessary, Sceptre? Or do you really want them reviewed? I am unsure. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

When I feel that an article can go straight to FA, I very often skip GA as it adds, on average, about three weeks to the waiting process. Sceptre ^(talk) 20:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I admit that the obvious disrespect expressed toward GA discourages reviewing GAN articles, thus adding to the lag time. My enthusiasm to do so has dwindled. However, I think the standards of GA reviewers are quite high and that a GA review usually benefits an article, raising the quality. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend that if one skips GA, they would go through peer review. If nothing else, GA allows the article to be looked at by a fresh set of eyes. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think Sceptre is being very flippant here; GA review usually results in dramatic improvement. Ceoil (talk) 23:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The last few times I have put articles through GAN I have been well-pleased by the thoroughness of the reviewer; it has been a great impetus towards FAC. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:20, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

GAN can definitely be a wait, but every single article I've put through the process has been improved, even if only slightly. Regarding the original question, I think the unearthed goldmine of unwritten articles that could qualify for that award numbers in the hundreds of thousands. I hope I live long enough to see most of them converted to that status :) Sasata (talk) 05:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Further categorization

How about further splitting up the categorization for the really bulky sections? Biology, for example, can have one subsection for dinosaurs, one for birds, etc and eventually one for other related topics. It would make it easier for readers to find featured articles that are of interest to them. Mikael Häggström (talk) 05:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It doesn't need to be major or exactly the same, but there could be some unformity in headers similar to WP:FL and WP:GA.

Yes the current arrangement is producing considerable asymmetry in the group sizes. Adding subsections probably makes sense.—RJH (talk) 21:18, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

New level above FA?

With >2500 featured articles, the status is becoming less exclusive by the day. (Yes, there are more Wikipedia articles overall, but it's inevitable that as the absolute number of FAs increase, so too will the gap between the best and worst). Perhaps we should go one step further and create of an additional grade of articles. There was talk here of some kind of "Featured article of the year" award, which didn't come to pass. I propose nothing so complex, merely the exact same process as for featured articles, just more stringent. A feature on the main page once a month seems like a good starting point. It would serve as an incentive to improve those articles that comfortably meet the criteria for featured article into something even better. Nichlemn (talk) 10:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Something like an A* FA or "Super FA" you mean? Well more work needs putting into stubs and developed B class articles to GA and FA rather than spending more time on articles already of the highest standard. We have 2500 FAs in reality we want 2,500,000 FAs. Award of the year sounds like a good idea but an additional grade would make the concept of a featured article redundant. The idea of course is that these are ALL the best articles on wikipedia.Dr. Blofeld (talk) 13:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Nichlemn has half a point - a lot of older FAs are not up to current standards. Re "merely the exact same process as for featured articles, just more stringent", I'd guess Nichlemn has not been through a recent FA review. --Philcha (talk) 14:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah the standards today are WAY tougher than they used to be. And that goes for GAs and DYKs too.Dr. Blofeld (talk) 15:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyone can start up a new level if they want to: simply create WP:WikiProject Better-than-featured articles and see if anyone else is willing to follow. Physchim62 (talk) 15:23, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather see work being driven into updating old and not-up-to-scratch FAs and promoting more articles to this status than creating an entirely new standard. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 16:30, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The obvious solution is to improve the outdate FAs in one's sphere of interest and participate at FAR for the rest. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing that at least 600 FAs would cop about 5 strong opposes immediately if they were listed at FAC now. A lot more would get held up until they are polished properly YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Another problem is, it's not as if there is a clear line between the okay and not-okay ones. I thought FAR was doing a good gob of working through them at a steady pace (?) Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That's true of course (the first part) but the volume at FAR isn't high enough to keep up with eg, the stuff that was promoted 24 months ago... YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 03:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with MOTOD, and I've been following through by trying to bring some older FAs up to more recent standards. Still, perhaps a higher order of merit could be awarded for FA pages that are well maintained. Maybe we could start with an FA of the year award? An "Order of Merit" page? A "lifetime award" for FAs that are X years old and pass a second review?—RJH (talk) 21:25, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

That idea was proposed, and did not gain traction. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Featured BLPs

On the off-chance that anyone is interested, I did a brief analysis to come up with some stats and a snapshot listing the featured articles concerning living people. The results are here in my userspace. Carcharoth (talk) 23:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

While checking the above, I found these two articles which are tagged as FAs on their talk pages, but don't appear to be FAs. Can someone here confirm that? Carol Bartz, Julian Myerscough. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 08:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Those were tagged FA within the wikproject biography template, not within an ArticleHistory template. Gimmetrow 09:28, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Random Featured Article

I made a script here that generates a random featured article: http://www.greatplay.net/wikipedia.php I thought you guys would want to know. It could be useful/awesome. Peterhuford (talk) 19:24, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

One already exists on the Wikimedia toolserver here Raul654 (talk) 19:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

At least maybe it can still be noteworthy for having a nice red button then. Peterhuford (talk) 20:07, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, these tools are awesome. I already made bookmark buttons in my browser bar for dapete's RFA and RGA tools so that I could surf in just the way you formulated. I also tried to get them added to the WP navigation box over there <---- . John Broughton suggested it could be done in this wise:

...
Current events
Random article:

Any | Good | Featured

which i liked a lot, but nobody really got the idea that if the function isn't on every page, it is inefficient. (Or else they were just suggesting they could go on a static page to be polite :) ). 86.44.25.10 (talk) 03:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

class the featured content by date

evedently there is too much featured content and some things like todays D-day should be shown as a calander event in featured events

also i would like to know what articles are diffined as interesting to the most users at one point in time. as i would also like to know what articles where not interessting at all to most users at one time. and maybe even what articles had most visits at one time and also most visits with no avis at one time. among other things there is a lot of info that is not processed here that could be. and somtimes it is processed but nobody knows it, because it's not in the tools — 92.143.4.107 (talk) 17:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

past featured articles

where can i find a list of all featured (versions) of articles 79.101.174.192 (talk) 14:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Former_featured_articles shows former featured articles, but not featured versions... 79.101.174.192 (talk) 14:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Many (most?) featured articles or former featured articles have the featured version listed on the article talk page. If you go to the talk page of the article, there should be a section for "Article history". That will have a little table with date and event. The link for the date is the version of the article at the listed milestone. Hopefully that will give you the information you are seeking. Karanacs (talk) 14:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

i know. its just too much work ;-) simple list would be useful... 79.101.174.192 (talk) 14:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

all featured articles as PDF?

to print out like here! :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.44.154.239 (talk) 22:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit notice

I've created an edit notice for this page at Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Featured articles, to hopefully prevent premature additions. Comments/suggestions welcome. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest the following instead:

Articles are listed here if FAC director Raul654, or his delegates SandyGeorgia and Karanacs, decide there is consensus at Featured article candidates (FAC) and delisted if Raul654, or his delegates Marskell, Joelr31 and YellowMonkey, decide there is consensus at Featured article review (FAR).

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Links, maybe? Dabomb87 (talk) 00:21, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Good idea,

Done. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Premature additions happened at a rate of like four times a year? People are going a bit crazy with edit notices lately. Like boxes on talk pages, I'm already ignoring them by default and hence will at some stage violate an arbcom restriction or make an edit that blows up the wiki. 86.44.25.10 (talk) 03:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I think editnotices are extremely useful, actually. Not sure how ArbCom or blowing up the wiki came into this, though... –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:42, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this one could cut 4 instances down to 2 maybe :) Arbcom and wikiexplosion = sorta a signal to noise thing. Like a talk page with 8 boxes, one of which is warning the article falls under restrictions (real example, and that's with WPP bannershell in place). I'm not gonna even start to read 8 boxes. Likewise edit notices for everything on a wiki. I'm gonna ignore them and nothing bad is going to happen until i miss one that is actually important. Note that this one isn't: if I ignored it, I'd be reverted, the time spent reverting ppl over the course of a year is prbly <5 mins and the amount of ppl misled by a wrong entry over a year i would suggest approaches zero. It's quite pretty however as edit notices go, and few people need to edit WP:FA, and if SG finds it helpful who am i to kvetch, but i'm kvetching anyway. :) 86.44.25.10 (talk) 05:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Featured_articles

Portal:Featured_articles, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Featured_articles and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Featured_articles during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Ruslik_Zero 13:55, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Incentive system for reviewers, again

For WT:FAR. To be frank, I think there is 0% chance that the average detail of reviews will decrease. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Featured crap (again)

“

Thriller was preserved by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry, as it was deemed "culturally significant".

”

What sort of prose is that? Yet again (the article was promoted in September 2008), FAC shows itself incapable of fulfilling even its original purpose, let alone the various bureaucratic add-ons that stick to it like leeches. Physchim62 (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Well go use WP:FAR. Heaps of FAs from the old days can be nominated and reviewed in about two minutes because the deficiencies are so obvious. I suppose I could just go and mass nom about 100 articles, but it would be considered over the top. And as everyone said before, the results of FAC/FAR show that people within the wikiproject are a lot more likely to vote blind support irrespecitve of quality, including one unsourced article where a whole stack from the WP voted all support, and everyone else oppose YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 13:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Anything Michael Jackson-related will need to be taken to FAR sooner or later, considering the attention those articles have received. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I would like to ask how Wiki can have so many "featured" articles about VIDEO GAMING. This simple fact is one of the characteristics that seriously damages the credibility of Wiki to a serious general audience. You might has well have 50 "featured" articles about every abused substance imaginable. There are few topics that do as much to amplify the stigma of "triviality" the way Video Gaming does. Jrgilb

Featured articles are chosen for their quality, not their relevance or importance. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, an entire article about a cricketer on the front page!

So, tell me again, WHAT IS CRICKET? 95-100% of Americans have never even heard of it. WHY DO I CARE ABOUT THE PERSONAL LIVES AND BATTING HISTORIES OF ITS PLAYERS? WHAT, PRAY TELL, INTEREST DOES ANYONE HAVE IN THIS, OUTSIDE CRICKET FANS? Why is the cricket/sports lobby so powerful in Wikipedia, anyway? Shouldn't they be outside playing sports, rather than ruining encyclopedia frontpages?

Thanks for sharing your wealth of global, diversified knowledge with us, Wikipedia, I don't know where I would be without on-tap access to Kevin Pietersen's cricketing statistics! 84.154.250.123 (talk) 10:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it's unfair to assume 95% of Americans do not know what cricket is. Also understand that that Wikipedia is not only here for Americans. It's also possible that some americans, who had not heard of cricket, found this article useful for that exact reason. Also understand that this article will only be on the main page for one day, and the main page is not only here purely for your personal benefit, but everyones, including cricket fans. BUC (talk) 14:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The argument can be succinctly flipped on its head by saying "baseball" instead. I mean, in the UK and Australia it's at the level of "national support", just below football and rugby. Sceptre ^(talk) 22:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

95-100% of Americans have never heard of cricket? Shows how ignorant Americans are. Don't get me started on football - REAL football, I mean, NOT the rugby crap Americans play. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for the WORLD, not only the USA. Maybe sports articles get on the Main Page too often. You know why? Because people are not writing articles on other topics like Singaporean history! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.10.241 (talk) 10:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see the source for that statistic. Also, if you look at Wikipedia:Today's featured article, you'd see that the subjects of TFAs are pretty spread out; before yesterday, there hadn't been a sports-related TFA since June 12. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:26, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I am an American. Cricket is a serious sporting endeavour that has been played for centuries, and is a worthy topic. I would like to ask how Wiki can have so many "featured" articles about VIDEO GAMING. This simple fact is one of the characteristics that seriously damages the credibility of Wiki to a serious general audience. You might has well have 50 "featured" articles about every abused substance imaginable. An article about cricket or a cricketer does not amplify the stigma of "triviality" the way Video Gaming does. Jrgilb Jrgilb (talk • contribs) 19:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Featured articles are chosen for their quality, not their relevance or importance. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

MFD nomination of WP:WBFAN

Presumably folks here might be interested, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Opinions needed on the RS-ness of a source widely used on FAC/GAC/GA/FA

A lot of Eurovision Song Contest articles, some of which have been successful and unsuccessful at FA/GA use a few websites that have been contested and are the subject of some debate. Please see Wikipedia:Featured article review/Eurovision Song Contest/archive2 and WT:EURO YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The Slave Community

Should Blassingame's The Slave Community be moved from the Literature/Theater Section to the History Section? Codyh1 (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)