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Greater detail in the Signpost

I posted this at the Signpost comments page the other day, they suggested I put it here:

Could I request that in the "featured content this week" section there be some details for the more notable featurings/de-featurings? I am always interested in that section and the go through and check out the recently featured articles/pix. However, I'd love it if there were a bit of context about the article's history/nomination process too.

For example, Singapore is up for it's 5th FA nomination this week. If it does indeed get FA'd, could there be written something along the lines of:

"Singapore was also featured this week in its 5th attempt. Previous nominations failed due to insufficent bribes to the FA committee. This is the 9th article that user:singapore guy has edited to featured in the last month - a wikipedia record."

Clearly I exagerate but you get the idea. This would be much more interesting than a simple list (though I realise that it would take more time to research!) Cheers, Witty lama 16:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be great if one of the other FA regulars could do some writing for the signpost. Raul654 17:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Back when I was doing them, I often tried to include stories like that—see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-08-08/Features_and_admins, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-08-01/Featured content, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-07-11/Features and admins. See especially the little blurbs in the first paragraph of the "Featured content" section. Is that what you are looking for? Or more along the lines of the first section of these articles (some story related to features or admins)? The little tidbits weren't a problem, but the story always took a long time. Maybe I'll start making suggestions on for interesting facts on current FACs every week; that wouldn't be too tough. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 05:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

New functionality for {{featured}}

Occasionally, a page is moved to a new title after it is featured. When this is done, the link to its FAC nomination on the talk page is broken. I just altered {{featured}} so that if a page is moved, its new title can be added to the featured tag to restore the link. Just use the template as follows: {{featured|revision id|former title}} and it will link to the nomination correctly. The revision id can be omitted - just make sure there are two pipes between 'featured' and the former title. Worldtraveller 14:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Strange!

It is rather strange that we have a “system” of degrading article from the status of FA status. Such degradation is certainly the result of aggregate of subsequent edits after the article attains the FA status. This leads one to believe that we are not building any encyclopedia, but playing a game of merry-go-round. Are we serious enough to build the project and take it to its logical conclusion of being the “sum total of human knowlede?.” In my opinion, once an article acquires FA status, a system should be in place to protect the content, and ensure only value-addition, and not value-erosion. --Bhadani 15:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

You make it sound so simple. The problem is not that there isn't a way to prevent featured articles from regressing. The problem is that nobody's interested in doing the maintenance work necessary to prevent this. Johnleemk | Talk 15:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Isn't it the responsibility of the editors? For example, I check the J. R. R. Tolkien article for bad edits regularly, as do others. That's what we're here to do. ▫ Urbane Legend chinwag 12:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
It is not just that subsequent edits "erode" the quality of a featured article (if only that were the case, it would be simple to revert back to the version that was featured originally - indeed, that is sometimes the answer when an article appears on WP:FARC). Another element is that the standards for featured articles have risen inexorably over time - key milestones were the addition the requirements for references and for inline citations, but the generally expected quality threshold at WP:FAC has also risen gradually - so it becomes a little inconsistent, indeed, somewhat embarassing, that the early featured artiles retain that label when they clearly not amongst the best articles that Wikipedia can offer.
We have to trust the Wikipedia community to protect featured content, winnowing the wheat from the chaff. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:14, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
"Such degradation is certainly the result of aggregate of subsequent edits after the article attains the FA status." - You could not be more wrong. Most - I'd guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% - articles are defeatured as a result of what I call inflation of expectations. That is to say, our expectations for what a featured article should be have been rising rapidly for two years. We expect a lot more now. Today, featured articles are expected them to be significantly longer than in the past, and are expected to have references, using an acceptable citation scheme. These requirements were, in effect, retroactively imposed, so many older featured articles do not meet the newer standards. Raul654 16:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team (and it's large "Related pages" section at the bottom, eg Wikipedia:Stable versions) -Quiddity 19:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I place on record my thanks for clarifying the issues involved. I am sure that we shall be able to do something to preserve at least our FAs. On my part, as a humble beginning, as suggested by Johnleemk, I will adopt few FAs for the "maintenance work." I am looking into the list, and shall adopt at least 2 (if possible 3) FAs. I am happy that my comments gave me a chance to understand the issues, and talk with you all, particularly with Raul654 who had elevated me to be an administrator on 18th September 2005. Time flies so fast in the company of wikipedia! --Bhadani 17:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Please do add some featured articles to your watchlist - the ones on popular or controversial topics are the ones most in need of a close eye (everyone has a photo of a rainbow to add, or an opinion on Yom Kippur War). I watch dozens, but many eyes blah bugs blah shallow. Even better, if harder work: watch WP:FARC and try to save a struggling featured article from the baying horde. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

perfect dark featured article

It redirects to XBOX 360 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.20.72.156 (talk • contribs)

That is because it was vandalised. This was reverted. --BillC 00:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

spoken icon

Would you like to make a CSS class for the Audio content icon icon, so it can be clicked and go to the article instead of the icon description page? It would be the same as the audiolink class, like so: Media:Guitar with fuzz.ogg — Omegatron 05:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe we will we removing the spoken article icons from this page in a few weeks when we do a redesign. Raul654 05:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I've proposed a new WikiProject on featured articles to work on maintaining current featured articles and bringing all current featured articles up to featured standard (rather than have them go through FARC). A WikiProject would enable a great deal more coordination than the discussions that currently go on. You can read the proposal at User:Cuivienen/WikiProject Featured Articles. —CuiviénenT|C, Monday, 15 May 2006 @ 14:00 UTC

GA spam on template:featured

fyi there is a discussion about the inclusion of spam text from the "good articles" project on the template:featured template, along the lines of "this featured article was once a good article!!!". its intended to inappropriately promote (i.e. internal spam) the non-policy GA project by piggybacking on the FA system. all users other than the GA-spammers who inserted it so far agree it adds no value to wikipedia and should not be included. feel free to add your comments at Template talk:Featured. thx. Zzzzz 20:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Zzzzz, the only spam relating to this is you posting in at least 20 places to try and get people to join your crusade. Are you trying to googlebomb Wikipedia so that it's the first result when you search for 'spam', by any chance? Worldtraveller 22:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Please assume good faith and remain civil. —CuiviénenT|C, Monday, 15 May 2006 @ 22:24 UTC
I think I've seen this message (or some variation thereof) from you about a dozen times on my watchlist today. Don't you think it's a bit excessive? It's just a template formatting discussion, after all. Kirill Lokshin 22:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Category separation

Does anybody think that in the list of featured articles under categories, that the history category could have a tropical cyclone category separate from it. I think there are enough articles under the tropical cyclone criteria that it can be its own category. Icelandic Hurricane #12

I'm not sure if there's enough articles to do that, but if they are recategorized, they should be recategorized under Meteorology and atmospheric sciences, and put all the weather articles there. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 23:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Delete template:featured article

I have nominated template:featured article for deletion - [1] (the one that goes in the article, not hte one that goes on the talk page). Not only does it violate policy, but as I predicted, it has caused a proliferation of other templates that do the same. Featured articles are supposed to represent our best practices, and not only does this violate policy, but it encourages others to do the same. Raul654 18:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  • For someone who doesn't yet understand all Wikijargon yet loves Wikipedia, loves giving discussion and loves editing pages, I was really disappointed when I noticed the Star in the corner gone. Earlier today (May 23), I browsed my way to Lindsay Lohan and discovered to my shock and apallment that hers was a Featured Article easily by the star in the top corner. Now having to flip over to the discussion page to discover the new, larger and denser template I can't immediately discern if the Random Article or browsed article I have just stumbled upon is in fact an FA. I don't know the rules per se, but I feel it is certainly worth it to step outside the moral footpath to make Wikipedia more userfriendly and to make its Featured Content more outstanding. When flipping through articles I can no longer tell the great ones from the mediocre ones based on first sight alone and I'm quite upset about that. Stephen 03:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed all sound icons

I've removed all sound icons (Finally!). Please give me real reasons of why they should be in this page and what do they have to do with FA status before putting them back. CG 17:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Please tell me where this action has been discussed, so that I might understand the arguments. -- Macropode 16:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Higher up on this page, in the "Interface", "Interface 2", and "Spoken icon" sections. Raul654 16:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

How does a Featured Article get on the Main Page?

I cannot find the answer to this question. How is it decided which Featured Articles get onto the Main Page? Is there a queue of Feature Articles that are to be put on the Main Page daily? --thirty-seven 07:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:TFA. Johnleemk | Talk 08:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Specifically, its talk page: WT:TFA. --BillC 08:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
People requested them at WT:TFA and I schedule them. The queue can be found at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 2006 (or, go to hte main page and click on the archive). Raul654 15:48, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Shrimp farm

Shouldn't Shrimp farm be under business instead of biology? It's more about farming than the shrimp itself. Rlevse 17:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

New layout

With much help from notepad's search-and-replace tool, I've gone ahead and implimented Pcb21's suggested layout. The page now looks very clean (if you want to see which articles have appeared on the main page, follow the HTML comment at the top of the page). Raul654 01:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how anyone will, unless they edit the page will even realize there is a way to see which articles on the main page, and can someone point me to instructions of altering my CSS file? I have no idea what it is and where to find it. Medvedenko 03:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Go to User:Medvedenko/monobook.css and add the line. For example, see user:Raul654/monobook.css. Raul654 03:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Medvedenko 18:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

This is unacceptable. Why have you made it so difficult to find which articles have been on the main page? Why do I have to change my monobook for this? Sorry but a better method will have to be discussed/implemented because this one does not aid users. Joelito (talk) 17:14, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

You are flatly wrong. As was discussed previously (months ago), the style that looked good years ago (when we had only two or three hundred featured articles and only a small fraction had appeared on the main page) did not look good at 900+ featured article, with more than half having appeared on the main page.
The solution we implimented gives users the choice about whether or not to view it with bolding. If they are not comptent to make the one-line change to their monobook file, then they can view this page using the default (non-bolded) layout and get nearly the same information. Raul654 20:48, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for this late reply, I was w/o internet access for a couple of days. I am not implying that the old (bolded) layout looked good. I am arguing that the current one lacks the information of whether the article has been on the main page or not. Can we expect all users to go and change their monobook to have this information? What about anon users? Should we deprive them of this information? I think that a better solution than the current one must be explored since we cannot expect eveyone to have the knowledge/expertise to tweak thei mononobook.
Again, this is a case of what/where/how to store/display meta-data. I think a solution that affects all Wiki articles/pagse must be explored. Joelito (talk) 02:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Bot to automatically "bold" articles

Would anyone have any objection if a bot was used to automatically "bold" (even though we don't use bold font in the current version anymore) articles on the main page at 0:00 UTC ? This task, as well as replacing the templace {{Mainpage date to come}} by {{Mainpage date}} on the featured article's talk page, is pretty straightforward (both manually and automatically) and it would be good to have done it automatically to make sure that the page is always up to date. The "Main page date" field on Wikipedia:Featured articles nominated in 2006 could also be updated at the same time (this is slightly more tedious to do manually, since the article could have been nominated earlier than 2006 and several pages may have to be checked before finding the corresponding entry). If the general feeling is positive, I'll ask for formal autorisation on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals. Schutz 09:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. (How often would the bot run? Daily? Hourly?) --DanDanRevolution 14:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
It just needs to run once a day, at 0:00 UTC, when the article on the main page is supposed to change. If it runs more often, it won't have anything to do (although there has been a few cases lately where the article appeared earlier, see for example this comment on my talk page). Schutz 15:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Raul654 18:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, no one complained about the idea on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals, so I'll start running it tonight. I should be around to doublecheck what happens, but don't hesitate to reverse the edits if any problem arises. The bot will run under my own username, but the edits will clearly be marked as an automatic bot update. Note that I have not had time to implement the update of page Wikipedia:Featured articles nominated in 2006; if everything else works ok, I'll look into it. Schutz 11:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
The first bot edit looks good! (Although I would recommend changing it to update at 00:01 to avoid confusion, though it really doesn't make a big difference.) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Yep, looks good. I don't really mind about changing the time (it is only a crontab -e away), but what kind of confusion would it avoid ? The actual article on the main page changes at 0:00 UTC (except if the cached version stays for a bit longer). Schutz 16:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, it's not a big deal, but with 00:00 it could be confusing about whether the article being bolded is just now going on the main page, or is just going off, etc. 00:00 has always been the time that's a little confusing to those who don't understand UTC or 24 hour time systems, and changing it to 00:01 would make things a bit clearer for others, in my opinion. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd say it is time to use the 24 hour system ;-) In any case, I am happy to delay the bolding by one minute; this could also help if there is a slight time difference between my computer and Wikipedia (the bot will not bold an article twice, but it will complain by email that it has nothing to do if it runs at 23:59, Wikipedia time). Schutz 15:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Okay, thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Bold

What happened to the bold text? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

See the section #New layout above; basically, it is still there, but by default hidden by the stylesheet. If you want to see the boldings, you have to tweak your stylesheet as explained. Schutz 15:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
They turned it into a CSS doodad - you have to add some lines to your [somethingorother].css to see the bold again (I must admit, I have not bothered yet). See some discussion at #New layout a couple of sections above. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Bob McEwen

The appearance of the article on Bob McEwen on the Main Page raised a lot of criticism, as evident in Talk:Bob McEwen#Featured Article? Oh c'mon.... The concensus seems to be, that the article is not only about a subject with minimal noteworthyness, but also bad prose. What is certain is the article is lacking the "beef"; it fails to menton a single interesting fact on the subject. There is hardly anything on Bob McEwen or his contributions to policy & legislative/voting records and plenty on his election details.

What the article has is a whole lot of references and footnotes. This seems to have been the main criteria in the FA nomination process. It thus passes some purely formal criteria for FA status.

There must be something wrong with either the criteria for FA status or the nomination process. This article clearly lacks the magic ingredient needed to make a good article. Formal requirements alone cannot make a good article, yet alone a featured article. -- Petri Krohn 01:34, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

That supposed "magic ingredient" is a requirement that articles be interesting, which I have already explicitely rejected as being an impossibly vague, totally impracticle criteria. The poliy we use - which has turned out to be a good one, on the whole - is that anything that can survive a trip to AFD can in theory become a featured article. Raul654 01:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, it must not be so "impossibly vague" as you say, if almost everyone agreed that this article in particular was not interesting.Rosa 02:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree with Rosa, Raul654's position that there is not critical value judgement on "more interesting" or "not interesting enough" that a majority can reach broad consensus on is absurd - clearly consensus is being reached on notability of all kinds of subjects (not just those which have only a marginal ex officio notability) all the time. It is categorically not an "impossibly vague, totally impractical" criteria. A workable criteria could be developed by taking current notability guidelines and making them more specific and with higher qualification standards (for instance, a guideline could be that if a subject's notability is only ex officio, his/her article is disqualified from FA status). The current policy used - the AFD process - does not address notability or interest at all, the current policy does not at all address the issue being discussed here. A "not at all" performance is not a "good one, on the whole".
      • Also consider that every minor political candidate or official in the US has a following of volunteers, including many web-savvy college students. Imagine if it became a standard practice for every politician to task their summer interns or college volunteers or web promotion team to create an article of sufficient quality to reach FA status. You might say that they run the risk of NPOV edits. But for politicians with little controversy, they are likely willing to trade some article balance for the marketing value of the Wikipedia main page, which may be worth millions of dollars. Bwithh 05:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
        • If such politicos are willing to devote time and money towards writing wikiepdia articles on themselves which are informative, neutral, and well referenced, I say more power to them - that is *EXACTLY* what the featured articles are supposed to encourage. I'd be delighted if the biggest FAC-related problem was having too many articles ready for the main page. Raul654 05:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
          • So basically, you're saying that it's impossible for the Wikipedia community (or admins) to reach concensus on which articles have importance or significance but yet you believe that a political campaign can write a neutral article about the politician it's endorsing? Rosa 06:04, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
            • Did you read what I wrote? If such politicos are willing to devote time and money towards writing wikiepdia articles on themselves which are informative, neutral, and well referenced..." - to wit, I have confidence in the ability of the FAC to weed out hte non-neutral nominations. Neutrality is, in fact, a FA criteria.
            • On the other hand, I do not have confidence in the ability of the FAC to judge "notability", based on how wonderfully consistent and collegial the Votes/Articles for Deletion has proven. This has been indicated by the many, many times I have said (almost verbatim) I *do not* want hte FAC becoming another AFD/VFD. Raul654 06:13, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Many of us seem to agree that even by a strictly technical definition, Bob McEwen falls well short of being "Featured"-worthy. But let's set that aside. Let's assume that the article satisfies all the Featured Article criteria. "Front page worthiness" is, at least to me and apparently to many others, a status not equivalent to and not fully satisfied by being a Featured Article. And in fact, I have found several instances on this page where possible Front Page candidates are opposed on the grounds of being too uninteresting, though I can't seem to dig up the discussion pertaining to Bob McEwen.
Bwithh put it very well when he said that ex officio status should not be enough for appearing on the front page. For a day at least, the chosen feature article is the face of Wikipedia to prospective unregistered users as well as an inspiration to existing editors of what can result from the collaborative writing process, and a snooze-fest like this one doesn't really serve either purpose effectively. — GT 07:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't see how showing wikipedia's wide range of articles is a bad thing and being non notable or of minor interest should never be a reason to keep an article off the front page. Wheter the article is FA quality is one issue, whether it is notable for the main page should never be. Medvedenko 21:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
So the following articles should be someday featured on the front page when they meet the technical criteria:
And PLEASE don't point out one or two you think I miscategorized that would make great front page articles. Per your and Raul's reasoning, every single one of these deserves to be there once it is filled out, made neutral and well sourced. — GT 03:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

In point of fact, Fred Phelps is already a featured article. It is one of the few articles I have decided to keep on my unofficial "no mainpage" list. Some of the articles you just mentioned would definitely go on the list (anal beads; crticism of wikipedia because it is gratitious navel-gazing for the same reason Wikipedia, a current featured article, won't go on the main page), some of them definitely would not go on the list (I'm perfectly willing to put Adolf Hitler as the daily FA; ditto Modified discrete cosine transform if we could find a suitable main page image), and some would be tough calls. Raul654 03:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Alpha Phi Alpha

I think the article Alpha Phi Alpha should be under the "History" section instead of the "Education" section. Ccson

No - a collegiate fraternity is definitely closer to education than it is to history. History is more of a catch-all for things that don't fall neatly into other categories. Raul654 05:46, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner FA

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'll give it go here. I'm a little confused as to why the above article was made featured today. It looked like there were at least three objections outstanding at the time the article was closed, with mine being the last one, described less than 24 hours before the article was featured. My understanding of FAC was that one significant, unadressed, actionable objection is enough to prevent the article from being promoted, but that objections can sometimes be thrown out for being trivial, subjective, or unfixable. I was sure my objections didn't fit the latter description (except for perhaps my feelings about the prose, which was a subjective call), so I was pretty shocked to see the thing closed so suddenly. Is there something I'm missing in this procedure? Or, is there a way to contest an fac-ruling? I love Stephen Colbert, I just felt the article had some problems. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 01:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be moved from the Politics section to the Media section? Isn't it more of a TV thing? Just wondering - Zone46 22:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

MAx Weber

Just a suggestion, but shouldn't Max Weber be listed under "Culture and society" rather than "Politics and government"? He is primarily known as a sociologist and then as an economic theoretician but not as a politician. Witty lama 15:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

If no one objects, I will go ahead and move the article to "culture and society". Cheers, Witty lama 05:04, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Done. Witty lama 05:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Sub categories on the FA page

With nigh-on 1000 Featured articles it appears to me that some of the more populous categories should be given sub categories. This would simply make it easier to visually sort the information being presented and would only need to be added if and when there were enough articles to be considered a sub-group. For example: Education could be left as it is for the moment (there's not much there) whilst "geography", "politics" "history" and "war" (the most populous areas) could have sub categories by continent/country. Witty lama 15:37, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the idea should be examined by related portals too (War Portal is the obvious case). Personally I don't think dividing War FAs by country should be a good idea, by time would be better... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Maybe by type (e.g. battles, people, weapons)? Dividing by time would lead to a massive WWII cluster. Kirill Lokshin 15:47, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Or by type, but not by country or continent... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
By the way, this does not mean creating whole new category trees and placing multiple category tags on each Featured article as suggested above at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_articles#Categorising FAs. All it suggests is breaking up Wikipedia:Featured articles by giving subheadings for existing groupings. Cheers, Witty lama 15:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I understood too. :) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Above, at a different sub-heading on this page, Raul654 wrote: 

I am very much against breaking this page up into sections. I do agree that the current page is long and could use a make-over...
But breaking it up into sections is not the answer.

Could I ask why you think this? Witty lama 16:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Is there a process for recognising improvements made to Featured Articles? I have sometimes clicked through to Featured Articles and thought that there was a lot of room for improvement. However, there is a feeling that people who read the article later, and maybe go and read the FAC page when the article passed, will think that the improved article was what passed FAC. Is there a way to resubmit a FA? Carcharoth 22:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC) (signed timestamp added restrospectively by original author to clarify who wrote this)
    • I don't understand the question. Resubmit a featured article, to what end? Raul654 22:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Perhaps Featured article review? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 22:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
        • Aha. Thanks. Featured article review is indeed probably the nearest thing to what I was looking for. To address Raul's query, I think I would be right in saying that improving an article and submitting it to be promoted to Featured Article is part (but obviously not all) of the motivation that some editors have to polish up an article and track down those references and so forth. My concern is that even articles that are promoted to featured article status shouldn't be viewed as a finished article - there is nearly always still room for improvement. But there is no corresponding process to acknowledge such improvement. Looking at Wikipedia:Featured article review: "This page is meant to facilitate the review of featured articles, to ensure that Wikipedia's best content does not deteriorate in quality." - that sounds great, but what about reviewing to acknowledge an increase in quality? Obviously there is no new level to be promoted to (and there shouldn't be, IMO), but the process could reaffirm that the article is still good enough, and could even state that it has improved still further. At the moment the process seems to be an initial "repair step" before sending a featured article to be stripped of featured status if the repair fails. But the review process should work both ways: "If a featured article has changed significantly since the last review, it should be listed here so that others can see how it has changed." (ie. this sentence should acknowledge that articles can improve as well as decline in quality). The only result of such a "positive" review might be a new template on the talk page saying something like "This article was reviewed on <date>, and consensus has identified it as a featured article that has continued to improve." Obviously, I disagree with the concept of frozen articles as stated on that page: "". Has this idea of detecting improvements in featured articles been discussed before? (The submitter could list the key additions, corrections and changes - it should be a fairly small list in most cases.) Does this sound like a good idea? Carcharoth 06:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
          • What you are describing sounds remarkably like User:Tsavage/FA Tracking Raul654 06:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
            • It does. Thanks for that link. Something similar I saw recently, which I thought might be suitable for Featured Articles (or at least tracking changes before, during, and after the nomination process), was something at an Australian collaboration of the week. Let's see if I can find it again... Yes, here we go. Have a look at this. In case anyone is interested, I stumbled across this while reading Thredbo landslide. Carcharoth 08:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

GA advertising on WP:FA

this page is not really the place to promote the non-policy "good articles" wikiproject. GA is widely promoted elsewhere and already has high visibility. furthermore, GA is not part of wikipolicy, just a wikiproject like any other, so cannot be merged with a central plank of wikipedia anyway. even if GA was policy, which it unfortunately isnt, there is also little evidence that editors "get disheartened when it receives plenty of oppose votes" - indeed those oppose votes help critique the article so it can be improved and nominated again, telling them to "go to GA" is merely accepting a lower standard for their article and never mind about trying to improve it. length of article is not a FA criteria - only comprehensiveness is. finally, the project has a history of inappropriate advertising (see previous discussions about the featured template and the good article star - consensus is quite clearly against making references to GA on FA pages and templates). accordingly i have removed the addition of the undiscussed advertising from WP:FA, WP:WIAFA and WP:FAC. cheers. Zzzzz 11:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Your ill-informed and aggressive anti-GA attitude is very tiresome. It's preposterous to accuse anyone of trying to 'advertise' it. Do you also think the links to featured pictures and links are 'advertising' them? You seem also to be confused by the fact that there's a GA process and a separate project which helps to manage the process. As for 'policy', well, nor is FA - they're processes, not policies, one long-established and the other more recent.
The GA icon was deleted because it was metadata - the FA star should also be deleted, and Raul654 nominated it for deletion recently. Discussions about whether to mention former GAs in the FA template were thoroughly disrupted by your spamming and aggressive posts. No consensus has been established against any mention of GA on FA pages, although I can see you wish it had. Worldtraveller 20:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Comparing links to WP:GA to links to WP:FI is a bit skewed. Wikipedia's Featured content is official, consensus-approved, well-established and uncontroversial work that forms the core of Wikipedia's entire editorial validation system and plays a huge role in what appears on Wikipedia's main page and shapes the face of Wikipedia. WP:GA, on the other hand, is just a WikiProject like any other, without consensus validation or formal recognition by the project. A better analogy than Featured Images would be something like plastering Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Wars ads onto random other WikiProjects purely to get more attention to the project. Likewise, going to such great lengths to advertise a project like WP:GA here shows a poor sense of priorities: the objective of projects like these are to improve Wikipedia's content, not to pat ourselves on the back or memetically spread a new hot project-fad.
Incidentally, I agree with removing the FA star from the corner of articles, and was one of the only 2 or 3 users (along with Raul654) to oppose its implementation when it was first proposed, though I harbor no strong feelings against it, since I've actually found it useful on a few occasions. -Silence 20:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be misunderstanding the situation here. No-one is trying to link to a wikiproject. The issue is whether to link to a similar article assessment process. I've got no idea what on earth you mean when you accuse people of 'going to such great lengths to advertise a project' because no-one's advertising a project and I no great lengths are being gone to. Worldtraveller 21:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know about Zzzzz's record. Good Articles is a proccess, not a project. Good Articles and Featured Articles are related because both are proccesses to recognize and reward high quality articles. This is not advertising - it's informing. As mentioned, Featured Article standards are very high. Therefore, many Featured Article candidates fail. When the nominator gets disheartened by the number of oppose votes, we can suggest he nominate the article for Good Article. This will establish that the article has a reasonable standard, and will draw more editors in to improve it into a Featured Article. In this way, Good Articles is a stepping stone to Featured Articles. That is the main reason why I wish to include a link to Good Articles, particularly from the Featured Articles page. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 01:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Good Article Links

On Wikipedia_talk:Good_articles/Nominations#Good_Article_Drive_and_other_suggestions we were discussing about Good Articles and Featured Articles.

We had the idea of placing a link to the Good Articles project page on various Featured Articles project pages. This is to give the Good Articles project more exposure. Featured Article standards are very high, and many editors want to get their articles "featured". They get disheartened when they find the odds are stacked against them. We should tell them to nominate it for Good Article, as a stepping stone to Featured Article. If an article I write becomes "good", I would want to improve it to "featured". User:Lincher encouraged me to "be the guest" and User:SeizureDog mentioned "It's a shame that Good Articles aren't mentioned at (the) Featured Articles (page)".

I added a paragraph with links to both the Featured Articles and Featured Article Candidates page. However, I did not know how to add them to the box, and my paragraph was not too well worded. Someone removed my addition, and told me to "discuss". I left a note on his talk page, and decided to "discuss" here.

Perhaps someone could help me reword my paragraph and re-add it into the box. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

*rolls eyes* Zzzzz beat me to it. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I think Zzzzz is right. WP:FA is one of the most popular project pages we've got, and as a result, various groups attempt to leverage it for their own purposes. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but we've got to remember the point of this page. Just like it isn't to advertise which articles have spoken versions, it isn't to give credibility for a non-policy validation measure such as WP:GA. Let's keep the page clean and simple, with a clear focus. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 13:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Zzzzzz, Spangineer et al. I'm getting rather tired of having to remove various projects attempting to put gratitious advertisements on this page. Don't get me wrong - related projects linking to each other is good (which is why I set up the featured-content related template at the top). On the other hand, that doesn't mean that every project on Wikipedia gets a link from here. Raul654 15:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not terribly excised either way about including a GA link, but I do want to say that I disagree with the suggestion that anyone was trying to use FA to 'advertise'. Zzzzz spammed large numbers of pages to try and gather support in his recent crusade against what he saw as 'GA spam', and it was nothing of the sort. GA is related to FA in much the same way as PR is, and adding a link is not at all about seeking credibility, but all about letting people know of another way to get productive feedback and critique, which many articles have now used on their way to FA status. Also, I'm not sure I see how GA is 'non-policy'. Worldtraveller 13:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm... I guess I'm not sure about the role of the Wikiproject. I assumed that the two were tied together, and that adding a link here was linking to the work of a specific wikiproject. Whether something is "policy" or not isn't particularly relevant here I suppose; FA isn't a policy either, it's an established process that exists because people use it. In that sense, GA is similar, though not nearly as strong as FA. There is a distinction between GA and PR though; PR is commonly considered something of a prerequisite for an FAC, but GA isn't. I'll admit that GA is sometimes better at returning feedback than PR is, but the goals are different. Because it ranks articles, it's more of a parallel process, and less of a feed-in to FA. Anyway; I was probably a bit hasty with my initial reply—I still don't like the idea of adding the link, but it isn't that big of a deal. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 15:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
The purpose of the project is just to facilitate the smooth running of the GA process. The process could certainly exist without the project, but it is a convenient way of coordinating the efforts of the regular reviewers. In a way it's a bit like the FA director for GAs. I'm not fussed about the link, really, but thought it would be useful to try and clarify the distinction between GA and Wikiproject:GA anyway. Worldtraveller 15:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
This page is a portal for content that has been certified as Wikipedia's best, it should not contain links to the good articles pages (or to peer review for that matter) because they are outside the scope of the page. A link to WP:GA might be more appropriate at WP:FAC. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the link to WP:GA is appropriate here, but I don't see the problem in the link from WP:WIAFA to WP:WIAGA in the See also section, as we have a list of suggestions there. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 00:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think we can reach a consensus on this. There should be no link to Good Articles from the Featured Articles page - only on the Featured Article Candidates page. Peer Review is also a way to improve articles to Featured status. Good Articles and Featured Articles are related projects which both aim to recognize high quality articles. Good Articles are potential Featured Articles, or a stepping stone to Featured Articles. Thanks for everyone's input. Now I hope someone will rephrase my paragraph and add it into the box. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 03:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia:Featured article review is now the process for improving and removing FAs, I changed the link on the main FA page and Template:Fapages to reflect this. While Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates will continue for the pages that are already listed there, we don't want people to mistakenly add new listings to that page. Best, --Alabamaboy 13:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The most unbelievable thing has happened...

The English Wikipedia now has its thousandth FA--on Iranian peoples!

Kudos to the hundreds of editors who have made this a reality.

Now, let's see about #2000... --Slgrandson 15:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

when did it happen?

When was the 1000th featured article? i don't remember seing it?

Dumoren 06:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Sometime around 15:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC) – Gurch 10:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

How long does it take to nominate an article?

I know it takes a while to write it, but how long does it usually take to nominate one for featured article of the day?

Dumoren 10:47, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Depends. Sometimes, they go through in a few days (5-6 is usually the minimum); other times, it takes several weeks. Once the article is a featured article, it's possible to request that it appear on the main page on a specific date, so long as you give it at least a few week's notice. So that's usually the time frame. However, it often happens that new FAs don't end up on the main page immediately—those decisions are made by User:Raul654, and instead of sticking to the order of promotion, he puts things on the main page in such a way as to show the diversity of topics covered on Wikipedia. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 17:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

History of Miami, Florida took me about two months to it reached featrured and another two months in reaching the main page, like Spangineer says, it depends on the topic. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 20:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey can Homestar Runner be nominated?- Person from the HRWiki

You mean me? I'm from Homestar runner wiki.

Dumoren 08:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I've recommended some new image changes to two or three of the FA star-related images at Template_talk:FACfailed, if anyone's interested in voicing their thoughts. Specifically, I've recommend a different talk-page-header image for either former FAs or failed FACs, and a different one for failed (i.e., non-removed) FARCs. -Silence 21:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Removal candidates

Where did this section go? It seems to have disapeared. Why?

Ina Garten

Shouldn't Ina Garten be featured under Media instead of Food and Drink? She's a chef, cookbook author, and hostess of a cooking show, yes, but not a beverage or a foodstuff, LOL. Any thoughts? Air.dance 23:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, you no more need to be a foodstuff to go under Food and Drink than you need to be a television set to go under Media. Biographies tend to be categorized under the subject which the person is most associated with; Food and Drink sounds right to me, but it's definitely arguable either way. Of course, selfishly, I want more FAs in the poor, sad Food and Drink category... ;-) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Bunchofgrapes took the words right out of my mouth. Raul654 02:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
LOL, a true and salient point. We'll leave it be, then. Air.dance 02:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Calculations

I like math, so I created {{fa count}} as a handy way to:

  • update the count, without touching the rest of the article
  • update the two formulas: 1 in X and Y percent

I hope everyone likes this (but if it's confusing or cumbersome then just revert my changes: this is a wiki! :-) --Uncle Ed 19:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a fan for several reasons. First, it means instead of updating this page when I add articles, I have to edit a seperate articel entirely. Second, it makes it difficult to track which add/removed articles caused it to change (instead of looking at each diff, now you have to look at the diff and hte page history of the other article). I like the automated calculation it has now, but I think that's just taking it a bit far. Raul654 20:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Gotcha. Thanks. --Uncle Ed 21:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Other Wikipedias' featured article standards

How hard is it to bring an article to FA standard on other language Wikipedias? From what I gather German might be the strictest, with others like Japanese and Dutch not even requiring references. Authenticity 20:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Someone else will have to answer for the specifics, but in general, foreign-language Wikis seem to have lower standards for Featured Articles, because otherwise they'd have too few Featured Articles for it to be meaningful; this is comparable to the way the English Wikipedia used to have much lower standards for FA. Smaller Wikis have lower standards by necessity. I can't compare the quality of prose, but based on length alone, for example, the English Wikipedia has an 28-page featured article on Albert Einstein, the German Wikipedia has a 20-page featured article on the same topic, the Spanish Wikipedia has a 13-page featured article on the same topic, and the Hebrew Wikipedia has a 6-page featured article on the same topic. So, Featured Article standards tend to increase relative to the size and activeness of the overall encyclopedia, in order to maintain an equilibrium between too many FAs and too few. -Silence 21:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia requires sources, but only major ones and no inline citations at all (They have become more common recently, but articles can and will get featured without any). The quality of the articles themselves is comparable, in my opinion. -- grm_wnr Esc 21:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
German featured articles fall behind English articles. Prose is not as crisp (FAs may contain lists) and key components such as lead section and paragraph structures are not heavily enforced. One paragraph leads and stubby paragraphs in the article are still common in German FAs. In time though, they will be of comparable quality. Joelito (talk) 21:44, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Main Page FAs

Why was the bolding of FAs that had been on the main page taken off? I really liked this feature. Is there a way to track this now short of looking at every FA's talk page?Rlevse 00:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Paste the following into your monobook - User:Rlevse/monobook.css:
 #has_been_on_main_page { font-weight: bold; }
Bolding of articles that have been on the main page is now a "hidden" feature, that can be enabled with user .css stylesheets. -Aude (talk | contribs) 00:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
See Help:User style for more details on user stylesheets. -Aude (talk | contribs) 00:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Cat question

I contribute to a number of occult topics on Wikipedia. I notice that this is not listed in Wikipedia's featured article as a category. How would I even go about requesting that this category be added here, so I can nominate articles? Bare in mind that I do not have any I wish to nominate at this moment, but some are coming close to being very good articles. Any help will be appreciated. Zos 18:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a bit backwards. This page doesn't, as a general rule, contain empty categories; it would be more appropriate to discuss such a category once some articles on those topics get nominated and featured. (You can, incidentally, nominate articles on any topic without worrying about the category scheme here; these categories are only for the purposes of organizing this page, and don't really have any deeper meaning.) Kirill Lokshin 18:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. It was just an observation I was making, that there in fact does not exist a section. And if I found out how the process of categorizing worked, it would prompt me to extend an initial effort to beef up the articles I contribute to, that much faster, so I can nominate them. But my general concern is, could a category such as the one I'm speaking of be made if a designated amount of articles were nominated. I say designated, because the category for Food and Drink has 8 articles, and Psychology only has 4. So would it be safe to assume that I would have to nominate about 4-8 articles before a category such as Occult were added to the list? Or can it be done after one or two nominations? Zos 18:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Religion "and beliefs"?

Why the "and beliefs" stipulation at the end of this section? It seems needlessly ambiguous, not to mention just plain inaccurate—the section is explicitly not for all "beliefs", only for religion-related ones. We have other sections for non-religious beliefs. -Silence 01:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

"Beliefs" is a catch-all, to catch things that are similiar to religion but not quite, like (for example) occult figures (Nostradamus), mythologies (Greek mythology), 'etc. I'd be happy to hear out any alternate headings you can suggest, but frankly, I think as it now stands, the meaning is obvious. Raul654 01:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
But the meaning is even more obvious with just "Religion". The section is for religion-related articles (even if the relationship isn't always explicit), explicitly not for "religion and belief"-related articles. All of the categorizations are exactly as vague as the "Religion" one is; being inconsistent with this specific one is doing a disservice to our readers by misleading them into thinking that the section genuinely is for anything and everything related to beliefs, when in reality it's only for things related to religious beliefs! (Which is why the single word "religion" works perfectly.) We do not need a catch-all, and if we do use a catch-all, it should only "catch" things that actually fall under—the point of a catch-all isn't to literally catch all that doesn't fall under the category, because then the category encompasses everything! Using "Religion and beliefs" to mean "Religion, and some closely-related topics" is as bad as using equally silly titles like "Politics and ideas", or "Art and things", or "Law and written stuff". You'd even be better off with "Religion and etc." than "Religion and beliefs", since at least then people wouldn't be misled into thinking that the section is for beliefs of all kinds. Moreover, your "catch-all" is a complete failure with respect to implying that the "Religion" section isn't solely for religions, as Nostradamus does not fall under "beliefs" any more closely than he falls under "religion". I could suggest some other possibilities to replace "beliefs", but I'm completely unconvinced that any is necessary. The simplest solution is usually the best, and that seems to be the case here: I recommend "Religion". -Silence 04:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
The section is for religion-related articles (even if the relationship isn't always explicit), explicitly not for "religion and belief"-related articles. - this is incorrect. Occult figures do not have to be religious in nature, nor to mythologies. And as a matter of fact, Nostrodamus does most definitely fall under belief, in the sense that he's famous because people believe he predicted the future. Or, to throw out a few more corner cases, what happens if someone gets Astrology or Numerology up to FA? They certainly are not religious in nature - they are clearly 'belief'. "Religion and Mysticism" or "Religion and metaphysics" could viable alternatives. Raul654 04:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm raising an issue simular, in the above header! Zos 04:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
To answer your above question explicitely - the system of categorization is flexible. For example, the hurricane wiki-project got a whole bunch of hurricane-related articles up to FA status. After we got suffeicently many, I renamed hte geology and geophysic section into geologicy, geophysics, and meterology, and moved them all there from the history section.
So, my advice to you use - get the articles up to featured status, and don't worry about how they'll get categorized. It's a trivial issue that we can figure out later. For now, the first few that come along I am happy to lump in with the religion & belief section. Raul654 04:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
The occult is only listed under "Religion and beliefs" because the occult is related to religion, not because it's related to belief in general. That's why we have the occult and supernatural and mystical under the "Religion" section, and not thousands of other matters of belief, like philosophies and political ideologies. Hell, Category:Occult itself is listed in the category for religious beliefs, so Wikipedia itself directly contradicts your claim that the occult is related to "belief" in the general, not to "religion"! The same applies to Category:Mysticism, Category:Esotericism, Category:Spirituality, etc.: all of them, without exception, are categorized under the "religion" paradigm (either under Category:Religious faiths, traditions, and movements or Category:Religious behaviour and experience, or both). Likewise, Category:Mythology is categorized under Category:Religion; you can hardly get more explicit than that!
All I'm asking is for Wikipedia to be consistent with itself, by bringing the FA sections in-line with our already-existing, well-planned categorization system, which has, out of necessity, a very broad definition of "religion". Our FA page should have the clearest and most consistent categorization system on Wikipedia, not one of the least, and it should showcase our systematized and coherent categorization system, not deliberately ignore it!
(Oh, and I'm going to ignore the Nostradamus comment in the hopes that you were joking, not deliberately attempting to mislead me with equivocation of the ambiguous word "belief". Obviously this is not the sense of the word belief that is being used by WP:FA, else we'd also have Hitler under the "Religion and beliefs" section on the grounds that he wouldn't be as noteworthy if people hadn't "believed" that the Jews were inferior. Very silly. Nostradamus belongs in the "Religion" section not because people "believed" anything about him, but because he was a noted occultist (and the occult is subcategorized under "religious faiths, traditions and movements"). It's no more complicated than that.) -Silence 04:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Alright, "religion and mysticism" is a huge improvement over "religion and beliefs". Thanks for making the change, Raul. I still don't think it's ideal, because Category:Mysticism is clearly placed under Category:Religious behaviour and experience (as well as under Category:Esotericism and Category:Spirituality, which are both categorized under both Category:Religious faiths, traditions, and movements and Category:Religious behaviour and experience), but at least the new section title is merely redundant, not inaccurate or confusing. I'm satisfied for now. -Silence 06:07, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Release Version 0.5

Featured Articles are eligible for nomination for Release Version 0.5. Maurreen 12:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

(Caveat: If their subject matter is noteworthy enough.) -Silence 21:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Don't bother making nominations. The process is somewhat of a joke. I nominated a currently featured article to be included and it was removed from the list 6 minutes after I made the nomination. They claim they read the articles before making a decision, but you'd have to be a world-class speedreader to pull that off. The selection process is pretty much whatever those in charge want it to be. --Jayzel 17:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Now hold on—the page says "These entries will be selected based on importance and quality." You added 1996 U.S. campaign finance scandal, which might be very high quality, but is extremely specific. This process is for articles like Politics or United States or maybe even Campaign finance, but not one specific scandal that occurred during one specific election. Take a look at the articles that are getting approved. That article not getting added has nothing to do with its quality but everything to do with its significance. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 17:42, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Here are some recently selected articles for the CD: Selena — The Giver — Mariah Carey. These aren't exactly core or significant topics -- and they are very specific. I stand by my comment. The selection process is very selective. --Jayzel 18:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
The Giver? Really? Considering the unaddressed serious objections of Jun-Dai and myself on FAC in June 2005 (much more closely argued than the three supports), I'm surprised to learn that that article was Featured, let alone selected for Version 0.5. It had potential but was far from ready for FA status and is a poor choice for version 0.5 IMO. I say that based on quality. [/me thinks about signing up to help review articles for Version 0.5.] Bishonen | talk 02:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC).
indeed it seems this wikiproject is a joke. Hong Kong action cinema is deemed not notable enough, yet Mariah Carey is? i suggest not bothering with it. Zzzzz 13:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Time to vote for a new monitor of FAs

With all due respect for Raul654 (he has done a wonderful job until now), I think it is time to vote for a new monitor of FAs. Either that or I think we should create a FA committee. The process is becoming too big for one person to handle on their own. Hurricane Katrina was recently promoted to featured status even though it had numerous outstanding and actionable objections to its comprehensiveness and nuetrality. This is a violation of Wikipedia rules. None of the objections were even acknowledged, never mind addressed. Perhaps Raul654 is overworked due to his university studies. I am requesting a vote of confidence on him and am requesting a vote on whether a committee should be formed to replace him or at least be put in place that includes him and at least three other Wikipedians. --Jayzel 01:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The fact that you disagreed with him over a particular promotion—and just one promotion out of hundreds, mind you—does not indicate that there's any substantial problem here which would necessitate adding more bureaucracy. (And the actionability of a particular objection is, of course, just as subject to consensus as any other change to an article; there are plenty of things which would be superficially "actionable"—in the sense that what was requested could be performed—but which are nonetheless decidedly poor ideas, and thus shouldn't actually be implemented.) Kirill Lokshin 01:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Hogwash and gobbledegook. How could there be any "consensus" when there wasn't even any acknowledgement of the objections? They were COMPLETELY ignored. Wikipedia RULES clearly state that if there are ANY actionable objections an article SHOULD NOT be promoted to featured status. This is NOT up to interpretation. The rules were completely violated. To deny this is making a FARCE of this website. I will NOT sit back and allow this. If a logical explaination is not given within 48 hours, I will personally remove the featured status of this article myself. --Jayzel 02:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Objections from WP:FAC: Strong object The "criticism of government" section does not make any reference to state and local governments or to Louisiana Governor Blanco and New Orleans mayor Nagin. In fact, both Blanco and Nagin are only referred to once in the entire article. Seems odd considering the roles they played during the hurricane. In fact, Blanco is never even referred to as a governor. In the "Looting and violence" section she is just quoted as Kathleen Blanco with no title. --Jayzel 01:52, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
P.S. there is no mention of the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, et al. in the "preparations" section and not a word about the state of Louisiana and Mississippi and the city government of New orleans in the "government response" section. In fact, this entire article leaves the reader to believe the Federal U.S. government controls all local, Parish, and state decision-making. --Jayzel 02:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC) "If enough time passes without objections being resolved, nominations will be removed from the candidates list and archived". From: "The paragraph is an improvement, but I have some agreement with the concerns of poster Avenue. Re: my comments about the "preparations" section, the section is broken down into Florida, New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast. First, as Louisiana and Mississippi were the hardest hit areas, why is there no discussion about how these state and local governments prepared for the storm? Second, the "Gulf Coast" section just talks about President Bush and the National Weather Service. These comments should be listed under a "Federal Government" header. You also haven't acknowledged my concerns re: local and state "reponse" to the action. Lastly, I noticed in the "New orleans impact" section there is reference to 6 dead found in the Superdome with a citiation to an article called Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated. This story has extremely important information that is left out of the article. It talks about all the extreme claims of rapes and murders that were falsely alleged to have taken place at the Superdome and Convention Center by both the mayor and police chief of New Orleans. It was these erroneous claims that began the backlash about the government's response to the hurricane, therefore this should definately be highlighted in the article. This info can either be placed in the "critcism of government section" of the "media involvement" section. One final, minor note: I noticed there are a number of duplicate wikilinks throughout the article. Names and such wikilinked should only be linked to once in an article and at the time they are first mentioned. Someone needs to comb through the article and fix this issue. --Jayzel 15:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC) --Jayzel 02:17, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Strongly object, per Zafiroblue05. The inadequate government response is one of the most significant aspects of Katrina, but the article does not cover it adequately. What there is seems oddly truncated. For example, it says that "video footage and transcripts ... indicate that federal officials did inform Bush and Chertoff of the danger of levee breaches", but it never said why this was an issue: that Bush had earlier claimed that no one could have predicted the breaches. Rebutting criticisms without otherwise acknowledging them could be seen as POV. In any case, the lack of coverage of controversial aspects introduces a POV in itself. Wikipedia articles should be neutral, not neutered. In my view, the article fails to meet FA criteria 2b (comprehensiveness) and 2d (neutrality). -- Avenue 12:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
In short, we need to ask ourselves what Katrina meant and why it matters. To be sure, asking such questions — and, particularly, answering them — delves deeply into point of view. That's why we need to present different points of view and different ideas — and balance them, order them, and present them. It's not rocket science, but it is hard work. For a few days in August, the US looked like a third world country. Does anyone reading the article gather that? zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Before you do so, you may wish to reflect on the fact that Wikipedia is not an experiment in rule making, and that promotion to FA status is—and has always been—at the discretion of the FA director. Kirill Lokshin 02:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
And I'll remind you, there is no written law about who the FA director is. --Jayzel 02:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
No written law is required, as there is no substantial opposition to the status quo. Kirill Lokshin 02:55, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
We'll see about that. Consensus determines everything here. It is up to the masses to determine whether we should have a vote to remove Raul654. Your opinion is just one of many. You guys have 48 hours to give a logical explaination for violating Wikipedia rules. Regards, --Jayzel 03:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
We'll see about that. Where is the consensus that we have 48 hours? Bishonen | talk 03:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC).
Threats—particularly threats that you have no power to act upon—are unlikely to get you anywhere. Kirill Lokshin 03:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Kirill has a point. Ultimatums are unproductive and generally tend to be ill recieved. Raul654 02:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Looking for consensus whether Hurricane Katrina shoud be in the featured article list

Vote here. --Jayzel 03:23, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

m:Voting is evil. And apparently you decided not to wait for the results of this poll. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:34, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The Katrina article did had some serious objections on it, but it was Raul654 who placed in FA and I agree with his promotions, anyways like Bunchofgrapes said, voting is evil :). Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 03:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Serious, but not unconstested, objections. It's after all, up to Raul to decide whether pages should be promoted. Titoxd(?!?) 03:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
See you at the arbitration committee tomorrow. --Jayzel 04:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I am opening a discussion on the featured article director position

According to the archive of this page [[2]], User:Raul654 was chosen to be the FA director with only 17 affirmative supports back in August of 2004. He has been director for two years. Millions of new Wikipedians later he is still FA director and, as there are no guidelines for the position or guidelines for succession, he is currently de facto FA director for life. This isn't kosher for a supposedly open and free website that claims "anybody can edit". It is time to hold an open debate with the entire Wiki community. This debate should be advertised on the main page and anyone should be allowed to submit their names for consideration for the post. Wikipedia is now the 15th largest website in the world. Wikipedia's credibility should not be left permenently in the hands of a single man chosen by 17 people (himself included). Barring any serious detailed objections, I will be adding a link to this discussion on the main page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayzel68 (talk • contribs)

  • I will no longer be editing at Wikipedia due to threats by administrators to block my account. Please do not send me any more messages to my user page. I will only be checking in periodically to keep an eye on my watched pages. I will not be available to respond to any comments. Regards, --Jayzel 20:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Sigh... I don't appreciate having my votes be labled false just because I considered changing it at one point. In fact, on second reading of the articles, my vote will remain as is. As for the website you pointed out: Is that the wikipedia handbook for new administrators? If so, they need to write articles on "improving reading comprehension" and "accurately comparing situations" as I never said I was leaving as you state. I said I was no longer wasting my time editing. There is no point in trying to improve a web site littered with over-zealous, trigger-fingered administrators (I learned that years ago when I was a regular at a few chat sites in the late 1990s). By the way, even though I feel the website you pointed out was a little psycho-babble heavy, I did find a couple articles fairly amusing. The best by far was the one entitled "What makes a fuckhead?". If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do. It was quite funny. I'm still chuckling 45 minutes later. --Jayzel 06:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
You supported ten articles in the span of six minutes; each rationale was identical and unrelated to the articles in question. Thus, I must assume that your votes were not true expressions of your opinions regarding the quality of the articles. In other words, false votes. If this is the case, I would respectfully request that you strike your votes out of fairness to the nominating editors.
As for my assuming that you were leaving, I hope that you can understand how I might interpret "I will no longer be editing at Wikipedia" as a letter of resignation of sorts. Pagrashtak 02:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Not to point out the obvious, but since the FAC process is not a vote, this is all rather moot. It should be obvious to everyone involved in those discussions that Jayzel was merely making a point (a WP:POINT, technically). If Jayzel's dropping out Wikipedia, it doesn't really matter. Lee Bailey(talk) 03:22, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
You are very close to WP:POINT but your reasons are valid. I, however, trust User:Raul654. He makes some tough choices and the majority of times he is, in my opinion, correct. Joelito (talk) 23:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I second Joelr31. Raul does an amazing job at keeping all those FA pages up and running, and personally, I trust him completely for that task. :)) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 23:43, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Jayzel's objections raise an interesting point. I have nothing but respect for Raul, but it's been my observation that the way the FA process works isn't well spelled out for newcomers. As it happens now, the public description of the process doesn't always match the way the process works (for example, for practical reasons, there are often effective time limits to how long an article may be discussed; also, there ARE cases where a single, actionable objection might be ignored.) I believe it would be tremendously helpful if more information was provided somewhere. I can't see a downside to a greater amount of transparency in the process, including, but not limited to, an outline of the specific powers of the featured article director. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 01:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
transparency is my biggest concern. One person was given huge amounts of power by a few people 2 years ago, yet large segments of Wikipedia users (the vast majority of which have arrived recently) have no idea about this. I attempted to place a reference to the FA director on this main page, but was reverted by the other administrators in this discussion and then Raul attempted to put this page under protection without giving a reason. It's behaviour such as this that has me concerned Wikipedia is becomming a feifdom of a random few select. --Jayzel 03:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
If someone thinks that the FAC instructions could be improved (bearing in mind my desire to keep them brief and succinct), then I'm all for modifying them. On the other hand, as far as my role, I general prefer to keep leave it as "the guy who makes the process run smoothly". Raul654 02:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Take with a grain of salt -- with regard to the role of the FA director, part of my reason for asking for it be clarified is because I have no idea what it is. :) That said, it does appear that in practice the FA director has certain "special" powers which have never(?) been officially listed. Unless I am wrong. "Guy who makes the process run smoothly" is a great informal description of the title, but Wikipedia's supposed to be a somewhat open process, so shouldn't people know what the title specifically entails? -- Lee Bailey(talk) 02:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia's not supposed to be all process, rules, and formal policies though. Once upon a time, I hear, "use common sense" was an important doctrine for how things should work, and I believe Raul's role could be viewed as a holdover of that better time, before the combined key-pecking of a thousand process-loving ninnies turned it into one gigantic game of Nomic :-) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Tell the same thing to the ninnes who threated to have me blocked from posting for simply calling an edit vandalism. --Jayzel 03:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes. It turns out that it is common sense that describing edits which aren't vandalism as vandalism is offensive and promotes ill-will. Vandalism is writing "Sam is Gay" all over an article. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Aye, there's the rub. Wikipedia shouldn't be all about process, rules, etc. But when Wikipedians begin to act as though certain rules already exist -- isn't it fair to say they do? And if they already do -- isn't it fair to describe what the limits of those rules are? Isn't that less intrusive than promoting an unrealistic standard of editorial freedom and then chastising people when they take that standard at face value? I don't consider myself a "process-loving ninny", but I also understand Wikipedia to be based on "consensus building". Is consensus building possible without clear communication? -- Lee Bailey(talk) 03:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
This is starting to get a little ridiculous, we've got three sections about what's essentially one issue. And that issue, the "huge amounts of power" as Jayzel refers to it, boils down to putting a brown star on a web page. Actually, not even that - anyone can put a brown star on an article, Raul can just make it stick. I think most reasonable editors would have promoted the Hurricane Katrina article, so I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish by replacing Raul. He seems to be doing just fine as far as I can tell. Pagrashtak 03:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
If the position of FA director is so non-important and only amounts "to putting a brown star on a web page" then why all the fuss about opening a discussion about expanding the position into a committee, or allowing a new vote and publicizing it on the main page, or setting standards for the position, or putting a time limit on the term of service? --Jayzel 04:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
That is exactly my question. Pagrashtak 04:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) First let me say I wasn't trying to call anyone in this conversation a ninny; this was more a general name-calling regarding the combined efforts of many people over many years.
Sure, in the ideal world the policies we write are kind of a distillation of consensus and of the processes already used in practice. In other words, Wikipedia policies are best when they are descriptive rather than proscriptive. One of the dangers of even setting down such policies, though, is that they tend to calcify: once written down, it becomes a contentious matter to change methodologies at all, even under changing circumstances. Here's an example: at one time, Raul let FACs go seven days before removing them for having objections and not making progress. Today, with more nominations coming through, he usually lets them run only five. That sort of fluidity might not have been possible if a detailed write-up of the process existed at all... people would inevitably ascribe all sorts of "policy gravitas" to it, changing it would take all sorts of effort, and deviating from the written script would be forbidden. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
The problem with this thinking is that its practice is very selective. You say the FA director should not have any rules and should have fluidity of decision making, but where do you get this authority? If other editors decided to fluidly follow guidelines we'd be blocked in an instant. --Jayzel 04:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Because that's the whole point of designating an FA director in the first place? If we had no need for judgement calls, we could write a simple bot to do the promotions for us. Kirill Lokshin 04:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
The designation of the FA director was made two years ago by 16 people when Wikipedia was less than half its current size. It's time for standards to be set for the position and a maximum length of service to be enacted. Even the original discussion in August 2004 showed some had concerns about this.--Jayzel 12:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
As far as authority goes: is there actually anyone, besides yourself, who isn't content with the status quo here? Kirill Lokshin 04:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Pretty much everyone chiming in here are members of the fiefdom who know about this talk page. I would like to get a wider sampling of opinion amongst the overall Wiki community. --Jayzel 12:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't consider myself part of the "fiefdom", and I strongly support Raul keeping his position. FAC is the only discussion process on this site that actually works the way its supposed to, and both the lack of overly detailed rules and the way Raul acts in his position have a lot to do with that. If it ain't broke... --RobthTalk 13:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Aside from the ever-so-slightly insulting choice of terminology (Fiefdom? Who exactly do you take us for?) and the wisdom of ignoring the people who know about this talk page (ff the regular participants of the FA process seem to be against your suggestion, and the only support seems to come from those who have just discovered this page, it might hint at certain problems with the idea), what you're proposing is neither a discussion nor a sampling of opinion, but rather a public spectacle that will, even if it has no real result, tie things down for weeks, and serve only to create chaos and make everyone involved look quite silly. We most certainly do not need, at this stage, notices on the main page; providing them would only serve to flood the discussion with people who haven't the faintest idea of what the FA process is or how it works, and whose opinions on it must necessarily be taken with a grain of salt. Kirill Lokshin 14:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Bunchofgrapes... I do understand the position you're describing... I've heard variations on the theme quite a bit with regard to FAC, but I do think it dodges the issue a bit. Consensus building, with regard to major policy, should still come first. With the system we have presently, there's no way to suggest how much fluidity in the rules is too much -- it's inherently problematic to have an established "authority", so to speak, in charge of deciding the amount of authority they themselves have. And, with regards to your specific example about the 7-day rule, yes, it would have been controversial if some for of public announcement was made that the length of discussion time was going to be shortened. But my understanding was that that call was made due to the huge number of daily nominations and the fact that Raul is still doing the majority of the promotions personally. I can't imagine that, were it talked about, there'd have been no discussion of the idea of other admins taking up some of his workload. Would it have hurt so much to have held that discussion? -- Lee Bailey(talk) 04:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Touché --Jayzel 12:48, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
It seems odd to have FA status conferred by one person, if that is indeed what's going on. Not because there's anything inherently wrong with it, but rather because that's not how anything else is done on Wikipedia. I note that Jayzel68's objections to Hurricane Katrina, in particular, really haven't been addressed here, and from Jayzel's description, it sounds like a Good Article that is still lacking. But then, this is the first time I've ever looked at this page, so maybe I'm not a good judge. Powers 13:58, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I second the notions stated by Powers. I have nothing against the current FA Director, but why have multiple people running the DYK section but only one person running the FA section? If anything, I would think Raul would welcome the assistance and would have not problem with him selecting one or two additional people himself to aid him. Or by having three FA directors, there would have to be either a majority agreement to reach FA status or consensus. --NMajdan•talk 14:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that the fact that nothing else is done this way is terribly relevant. What's more important is whether the process in it's current form is working. I think it is, and it appears that most people participating in this discussion so far think the same; why switch to a more complicated process (a panel of directors strikes me as a bit cumbersome)? That said, perhaps Raul will at some point become overburdened and need help, and perhaps he already is. Instead of speculating, we could try asking him, like this: Hey, Raul, do you need help with the workload? --RobthTalk 15:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess I'm more surprised that in two years, and with the growth in the complexity of FAs, he hasn't requested help.--NMajdan•talk 15:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Raul has done great job and I trust he will keep on doing this. However, there is some merit to Jayzel idea, at least when I look upon the situation we have in historical terms: no matter how great is the leader, for various reasons they eventually disappear, and if this happens, we will be left in chaos. I would think that it would be best if Raul himself would design rules for himself (I trust they would not affect him at all) and his eventual successor, but I see no reason why there would be a need for a set term. As long as somebody is doing a good job, that's enough. If they stop, a community can show their disapproval, with the last resort (ArbCom) being sure to fix the issue (and force the change in any position).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
But the problem with this is Raul is also a member of the arbitration committee. It's the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse (not that I am suggesting Raul is a fox, mind you). --Jayzel 15:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that the rules need to be laid out; people who have watched the process for a while will be able to see how the job is done. I can think of at least a few long-time FAC participants who I'm sure would be more than capable of taking over the job. When the time comes for the job to change hands, I'd rather have the new director work from their experience of the spirit of the process than from a set of hard and fast rules. --RobthTalk 15:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I still not sure I understand the aversion to having any clarification of the process written down. In other sections of Wikipedia, we've gone to significant trouble to explain how we do things for the benefit of people just starting out. Yes, people who watch the process for a while eventually get a sense of how it works, but what's the harm in making it more obvious to average editors who may want to drop in and express their feelings about a specific article they've worked on, or know a lot about? These people are supposed to be included in the process, but I would presume about 85% of Wikipedians don't know what qualifies as a "significant, actionable objection" in an FAC, which would certainly put a non-regular in a much weaker position to argue their point of view. Jayzel's use of the term "fiefdom" was a bit harsh, but I do think it's fair to want to elicit outside opinions. It don't think the objection that a discussion could go on for "weeks" is a really compelling reason not to hold a community-wide discussion about a process that affects the entire community. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 17:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
(Entering the discussion late) - The thing about all this is that the system works just fine. Ruling by committee is inevitably going to be less effective than the current system. Raul has been the FA director for two years, he's written several FAs himself, this has been his project and he knows how to do it better than anybody else does. I can count the number of truly contentious promotions he has made on one hand. Should his position be clarified? Maybe. But if a vote were held as to whether he should remain FA Director (like that link you have at the top), virtually everybody who was at all familiar with the FAC process would be in favour of maintaining the status quo. FAC is probably the best-functioning page of its kind on Wikipedia. Why mess with success? The Disco King 23:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
My objection, and the objection that I think most people in this discussion have, to codifying the process to too great of an extent is as follows: A written description of a process can either describe the principle of the process, or, generally at greater length, attempt to approximate that principle's application. The former is what the current FA instructions about "significant, actionable objections" do. The problem with the latter is that people who first learn about the process by reading the approximating rules rather than by starting with the principle and learning how it is specifically applied through experience are likely to regard those rules, not the principle behind the process, as the basis of the process. And eventually, the approximation of the process can come to replace the original process. We've seen rule-based approximations replace principle-based processes on Wikipedia (e.g. RFA, where "consensus" is measured by vote counting); hopefully by keeping the instructions at FAC simple and focused on the theory behind the process, we can avoid a similar change here. It's probably a little trickier for newcomers to jump in, but when they do, they'll get an understanding of how the process works that's grounded in the principle, and that's well worth it in my opinion. --RobthTalk 06:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
For the record, I don't have any desire to replace Raul. With all the work he tireless gives this project, the FAC process really should, if anything, be trying to think of ways to keep him from ever leaving. :) That said, I see your point about the clarification of the rules potentially replacing the rules themselves, but if you can forgive the use of the term, it strikes me that there's a kind of elitism in that. People should be given the information they need to participate as fully as possible. They should know, for example, the length of time a discussion will last. They should how it's ultimately decided what objections are insignificant, or whether or not there's a consensus. One shouldn't be required to participate in two or three FACs or scroll back through 24 months worth of archived comments to learn enough to participate effectively -- an editor should be able to effectly participate the very first time. Keeping it simple is fine, but right now, although everything seems to "work", the process leaves no mechanism for not working. If Raul really is the final arbitor of, for example, "significance" of objections, there's no court of appeal for that whatsoever. A person can argue that something was significant, but if "significant" is by definition whatever the FAC process decides it to be, the process can never be wrong. The english language is a powerful one -- I can't believe it's completely impossible to find a way to describe the FAC process without damaging it. Perhaps the answer is to describe both the principle AND the practical functioning of this process. That way, an editor would know what the rules where, and why they were, but the principle would still be plain for everone to see, and in the event the rules needed to be modified to better adhere to the FA principle, they'd be easy enough to amend. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 11:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

My view on this topic is simple: Why fix if it ain't broke? Furthermore, I feel that if Raul needs help running the FA business, he knows whom to ask for help and how. My experience with FA process is enough to convince me that Raul is doing a great job. So let's assume good faith in the current process and avoid Instruction-creep. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 13:21, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Let's keep it simple; Raul's doing a fine job and more procedures to follow aren't necessary. The intro text does a good job of covering how the process works—I just linked the word "Consensus" to Wikipedia:Consensus, and that in conjunction with the lack of a specific time frame should give people the idea that we're talking about a rather flexible process. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 14:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm hoping the addition of this sentence will be okay: FAC consesus-building discussions usually remain open for a least five days, with additional time alotted at the sole discretion of the Featured Article Director. Feel free to revert pendering further discussion if I've been too bold, buit my reasoning was, it's only a sentence, and it makes it clear to anyone dropping by (who may have less time to spend on Wikipedia than I do) that if they want their comments to be heard, they should try to get around to commenting within those initial few days. Although it may seem obvious to people who've been here a while, without that sentence, there's nothing to indicate that there's a limited length of time of the discussion at all, or who makes judgements calls when they need to be made. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 15:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I second that. I don't have strong views on whether the directorship should be a permanent position, or how the director should be changed (if needs be), because the system seems fine for now. But since the director seems to have certain powers it wouldn't be open not to describe some of them. My suggestion is this: the descriptions of the directorial powers should not be seen as limiting, simply as a description of currently standard practice, and should not constrain the current director or his successors (i.e. "no wikilawyering") since in any case they are always exercised with directorial discretion. I can't see the harm, however, of indicating that extensions to time limits do not happen all of themselves, or through consensus (though this would presumably be rarely ignored), but through the use of directorial discretion. TheGrappler 18:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I see this has been reverted as unnecessary addition of instructions, and I have to agree. I don't know that an explanation of how long FACs run is necessary for new people, and I think this discussion as a whole may be overstating the difficulty of jumping in as a newbie. While I was getting my first nominated article ready, I took a look at a couple of articles that seemed to be doing well and a couple that weren't to see what the differences were; it took about 15 minutes. Unofficial guides like User:Taxman/Featured article advice and User:Jengod/Some common objections to featured status and how to avoid them are also great, and both those are linked to on WP:WIAFA. Reviewing articles is easier, and a glance through a few active nominations should provide a pretty good understanding of what sort of objections are generally made. Overly lengthy instructions can be a barrier to entry of their own, so unless there's some particular problem that an added instruction would address, I'm in favor of keeping it short and sweet. --RobthTalk 04:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate the idea of keeping it short too, but the addition was a single sentence, less than thirty words, and it clarified two ideas: one being that the discussion can be limited by amount of time (I'd have no objection to any rephrasing of that, I'd just like to see the idea represented in some form), and the other being that there IS a featured article director who makes some judgement calls occasionally -- not a controversial idea. I can't see this as "instruction creep" when instruction creep refers to instructions becoming unmanagably long, to the point where they go unread -- obviously, it's more work to dig around previous FACs, talk pages, etc, then to read an extra sentence in the first place. Nor can I see it as institutional creep -- the text merely described the FA process as it already exists, and is editable if it that process changes, just like everything else in Wikipedia. Lastly, I can't see it as unimportant: I spend way too much time on Wikipedia, but there are lots of productive editors who have less time to dedicate to it, and in real world time, five days isn't all that much. Giving fair warning as to when a process ends prevents interested parties from missing the discussion altogether, and late-comers from feeling shut out. Raul mentioned above he didn't have a problem with expanding the directions as long as it's kept concise. I've better described the process while adding only a sentence. If that's too much, you may as well say the whole thing can never be added to. Again I ask, where's the harm? -- Lee Bailey(talk) 04:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Again, I think Lee Bailey has justified his edit. Perhaps it can be improved on, but it was concise and precise: it's not rule-warring but it is important information about the FAC process. I think there's space for it: perhaps it can be written even more concisely but it was hardly excessive. TheGrappler 07:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Raul enjoys considerable support as FA director. However, I do think that it's something of an anomaly that he appears to have been granted the position in perpetuity. It's the only position on Wikipedia which involves actual editorial control, and so I think it would be very healthy if there were to be an endorsement/election process every year. Even if he ran unopposed and got few or no oppose votes (very likely what would happen), it would allow for discussion of what people want from the FA director and provide a forum for any grievances or queries. Worldtraveller 14:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I missed this until now. I agree with the general assessment here that Raul does an great job, and would likely have no significant opposition, but like Worldtraveller, would probably be happiest, deep down inside, if there were an endorsement/election process at some interval of some sort. I'd also be happiest if Raul won that endorsement/election process. It's just one of those disagree-with-what-you-say/defend-to-the-death-your-right-to-say-it kind of things. Besides, it would keep the newbies from feeling less "bitten" when things don't go their way. If we're really a consensus-based community, the occasional spot-check shouldn't hurt anything. But I'm not an expert; is there a counter-argument to this other than that Raul would readily win? -- Lee Bailey(talk) 19:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree. There still should be some election process.--NMajdan•talk 20:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Raul654 does a great job. HOwever, the points about how wiki works being hard to discover, great power in the hands of a few, policies real or imagined are all quite valid. Much of wiki decision making comes down to who can get the most people to agree with them in a debate, a debate that happens to the ignorance of the rest of us because we don't know what pages things happen on.Rlevse 22:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The Template:Featured has been modified so that the diff in an article's history at which point it received featured status can be accessed via a link on the header. This will allow for comparison and contrast between the current version of the article and the version which received featured status. An example of how this works can be viewed here.--Conrad Devonshire Talk 19:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

This should have been done from the beginning! I thought there was a reason for not doing this, so I never bothered to do this myself. I shouldn't have fooled myself into believing that there was no room for improvement... Carcharoth 14:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
But congratulations for doing this in such an elegant way! Just adding a version number. Really good. Now, is there a way to link to both the original FAC-version of the article and a newer version of the article if the article gets re-accredited through FAC again after major updates/rewrites? Carcharoth 14:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

expression error at top of article

The featured article calculation at the top of the article is giving an error.

Seems to be working now.

No it isn't. The number has been manually placed. The expression is still gives an error. Joelito (talk) 16:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Boldings Unclear

I am still scratching by head a bit over bolded titles. They are the ones that have been on the main page? Or there was some sort of change? Explaining the logical distinction on the project page would be a big plus for me. Thanks, GChriss 07:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Until about 2 months ago, we bolded articles that appeared on the main page. However, aesthetically, as the number of FAs increased (and as the proportion that had appeared on the main page increased), the bolding looked uglier and uglier. So we switched to the current layout, which gives people the option of turning the bolding on or off (the default is off) - bolding still indicates which ones have been on the main page, but now people aren't forced to see it if they don't want to. Raul654 18:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
What is it they say about the best-laid plans? They've been bold now since June 28. Fixing.... —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
So...what to do if I want to see bolding?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:16, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Add "span.featured_article_metadata#has_been_on_main_page{ font-weight: bold; }" (without the quotes) to your css file -- usually monobook.css. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Tnx :) Perhaps a note on how to do this should be added to the top of this talk page?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Facelift

I was planning on giving the FA page a facelift to look similar to the WP:GA page. Including collapsible sections, icons, sub-categories, and such. However, before making such a change and spending the time to do it, I wanted to run it by the talk page so it did not get quickly reverted. Does this sound like a good idea? Morphh 14:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This has been suggested in the past but hasn't gotten broad support. Subcategories and such are harder to maintain, icons are sometimes thought overly cutesy, and collapsible sections aren't as user friendly. Right now I think we're doing OK—maybe once we get up to 1500-2000 FAs we'll really need to start considering alternatives. --Spangineeres (háblame) 14:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe the collapsible menus are more user friendly then the mess of text presented. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to organize. We would not have to put them all in sub-categories right away. We could have an uncategorized sub-section at first which would allow editors to ease into it. Morphh 15:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Bad idea, in my opinion. The GA page is utterly impossible to navigate, since it has (a) no TOC (and it wouldn't work with collapsing sections even if one was present), and (b) too many sub-categories, often with quite bizarre nesting. The only point which I think might be non-controvesial would be icons, but that's merely an aesthetic change (and perhaps not a particularly useful one, to boot). Kirill Lokshin 15:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I find the GA article much easier to navigate then the FA article. The FA just looks like a mess of text to me and I find it more difficult to find stuff. I also like the idea of replacing the TOC (which would be replaced by the side icon/menu) with "Recently listed feature articles". Morphh 15:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I like this idea, this is a rather public page, and public likes eye-candy.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely no to subcategories - it already takes long enough to categorize new items with the system presently in place. As far as collapsible sections and icons - I'm ambivalent. I'd like to see them on a test page somewhere first before we impliment them here though. Raul654 15:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You can see how it would look at WP:GA. Worldtraveller 16:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Subcategories shouldn't be that much of an issue - the GA reviews manage it ;-p In addition, most of the FA articles for review will already be GA articles and subcategorized. Morphh 03:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

There is also something to be said for uniformity of the user experience. I think the GA article is clean, simple, professional and user friendly. I created a sandbox for testing it out on this article Wikipedia:Featured_articles/sandbox. Morphh 17:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The collapible sections are not user friendly, they are inconvient and harder to navigate through. Its the main thing I dislike about the Good Article page. Medvedenko 18:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Collapsible sections are awful. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I've always insisted on making a new layout of the FA page. And Morph is right, the more we wait the more the redesign will get difficult. If we don't agree on the GA layout, we have to think about another thing, but the current page is getting unnavigable. CG 19:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I dont think the GA system is all that efficient, the navigating through it takes some guess work as to where the articles might be listed as does FA. I also think that both pages need to be rebuilt preferably the same way, ideally they both need there own inbuilt search engine that they only return FA or GA articles. Gnangarra 02:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the GA format, but I would like to see subcategories. Maurreen 02:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The first thing that needs to be looked at is the subgroups having Wayne Gretzky with Bulbasaur really doesnt make any sense. Really before starting to create a format the appropriate subgroups need to created from there whats needed to best display them. Gnangarra 02:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm quite opposed to the collapsible sections; it severly limits accessiblity, among other issues. I navigate primarily with the keyboard, and I have a large high-resolution screen; it is quite annoying for me to have to click all the links on the right edge (also, on my screen, the "show" text is so far away from the titles that it's easy to miss it--for some time, I thought WP:GA was just a skeleton page, wondering "when are they going to add the article titles?"). Furthermore, you can't do a internal page search unless the relevant section is showing, which irritates me further. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Your latter point regarding searching is valid. However, your previous argument about using your keyboard primarily and your hi-res monitor puts you in the minority. Collapsable sections, if done right, can be very beneficial especially as the number of FAs grows.--NMajdan•talk 17:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

In response to dicussions on the FA talk page here and on the GA talk page here. As well as the discussion on this page together with other discussion taking place on the FA and GA talk pages and talk pages of associated articles. I propose that this page Standardised formats for FA and GA become the only forum where consensus be developed for standard page and template formats for both WP:FA and WP:GA. Gnangarra 17:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The collapsible sections are a bad idea, they make the page impossible to search by any means. How this would assist with navigation is a mystery. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at this edit. A basic and easily checkable fact in the Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom article (the salary) was not updated. The article appeared on the Main Page a few days ago. This sort of inaccuracy is the sort of thing that justifiably gives Wikipedia a bad reputation. What is the point of saying that our articles can be more up-to-date than others, when no-one checks to see if they are up-to-date? Can processes be put in place to stop this happening again?

I've raised this at several locations before realising which was the obvious location (here), and I was told by one person that Peer Review and the FAC process should have caught this error. Should it have done so? I went and looked up when this article attained featured status, and found that it was back in October 2004 (see here). It seems that this is more a case of a lack of correct "future-proofing" writing. ie. Write "as of 2006", rather than "this year", etc.

So maybe just a warning for editors in general, and FAC regulars in particular, to be more alert for this sort of thing? Thanks. Carcharoth 14:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Protected?

I'm thinking if the day's featured articles should be protected because these featured articles are highly visible to anyone and can vandalize it? I think this should reduce vandalism congestion. My decision is to temporarily protect featured pages of the day for the day so there's not much vandalism to that page. --Bigtop (tk|cb|em|ea) 07:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see User:Raul654/protection. Flcelloguy (A note?) 07:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

FA category?

I noticed the German wiki has a category for Featured Articles. Why not this one? Would it be difficult to implement? Xaxafrad 05:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It is implented using hte talk page template - Category:Wikipedia featured articles Raul654 05:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

New proposal

Featured Articles and Good Articles are both Wikipedia processes to recognize quality articles. I created a proposal for greater co-ordination and integration between the two processes, so that both processes will be more successful in their aim of recognizing quality articles. Please read and participate in the discussion on the village pump. Thanks. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Conflicting Reverts

My revert was based on the vandalised page, not the already-reverted one. Will self-revert back to corrected page. Nysin 18:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Or not. Nysin 18:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Ehh, already got it. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
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