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Request for comment: Periodic table article as three-peat TFA

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

  • There is ☒Nno consensus for implementing the tenets of this request.

    While each respondent based their argument on sound, policy based, rationale, the opposition nearly achieved consensus against the proposal. The indication is that any request to "three-peat" a TFA for exceptional circumstances will, at best, be an "uphill battle" (unlikely to succeed). This reality should be weighed whenever a request for a second appearance at TFA is undertaken for it may be the article's last opportunity.

    In closing this request, without prejudice, in regards to the request's merits and the propriety of this anniversary's recognition, I suggest coordinating with the Selected anniversaries project to attempt scheduling an appearance in the "On this day" section of the main page. Good luck!

    (non-admin closure) by --John Cline (talk) 23:39, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Our periodic table article appeared as TFA on February 28, 2004, and on January 8, 2018; could we TFA it again in 2019? Sandbh (talk) 01:16, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Context is as follows:

  • 2019 will be the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the Periodic System by Dmitry Mendeleev, in 1869;
  • the UN has proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table; and
  • the iconic status of the table in science.

There is some further commentary on this question, in the section before the previous section on this page. Sandbh (talk) 01:21, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

The periodic table is not just an "everything is important". In science, it is up there with Newton's classical mechanics, Einstein's theory of relativity, Darwin's theory of evolution, Franklin & Wilkins & Watson & Crick's discovery of DNA structure. Its importance in science history is commonly acknowledged. -DePiep (talk) 10:59, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Nor is it an "important topic to someone". Article Periodic table is at #104 of most viewed articles November 2018 [1]: 769.080 views (= 25k per day, 1000 per hour, 1 per 4 secs). In that list, it is the topmost science article. -DePiep (talk) 18:13, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Support on this one as an exception; below you can find a proposal which would prevent the need for a second exception ever.
Since it was my suggestion to start a discussion on this, I should probably say a word.
First of all, we are sorry to ask for it now when we held a TFA just last year. That is said, we really are, and if I hadn't brought up the possibility of bringing this to a wider discussion, this discussion would probably not haven taken place at all, as we do realize and understand the initial opposition to the suggestion. There must be an exceptional reasoning behind such a move. So why are we even trying?
Well, the periodic table is indeed very widely known. (This notion is echoed by the very large amount of views the article has.) It is one of the symbols of science among a few others such as the atomic model or flasks filled with colored liquids. Its importance within science is, I think, best represented by how the researchers in the United States, who were the first to discover a way of creating new chemical elements, named on their first elements mendelevium after the Russian scientist who had created the periodic table---despite the ideological battle accompanied by an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union; the American researchers were overseen by the U.S. government (many earlier reports were released to the public only years after they had been completed; some supervision remains even to this day) and even they apparently still allowed it. And this March, the periodic table will be having its 150th anniversary (and if we had thought of it in advance, we really would have scrapped the idea of the last TFA to wait for this which would have saved us the trouble; alas, it is too late for that now). The importance of this date is explained by how, as mentioned, even the United Nations has proclaimed 2019 as the year of the periodic table. Iridescent has argued above that this is of no particular relevance, but judging from the examples they back their opinion with, I see this opinion as mistaken: it must indeed feel nice to take things like quinoa and camelids for granted, but they have indeed shaped lives of many many people throughout the history (which also makes them incredibly important), and I would definitely expect a world organization such as the UN to take a moment to reflect this. This is why, despite the understandable skepticism on having an article run yet again, I would like to propose to make an exception for the big date.
I would also like to propose a means that would not make suggestions like this common and would have prevented even this situation. We could, for example, have a boldened line at WP:TFAR that would have the reader click a link on it if they intended to nominate an article that had already been a TFA, which would lead them to the rules for a second featuring in TFA that would include a reminder of taking a moment and thinking whether any important date was coming up any time soon and if the second nomination should wait for that date, or that reminder could be in a page notice above the editing window, somewhat like the one at WP:FAC. After the editors have been explicitly warned that they should really check if there's an important date to wait for, it will be fair to deny them a third featuring if they somehow missed a date and then remembered about it.--R8R (talk) 12:10, 16 December 2018 (UTC) (a small addition was added on 20:44, 22 December 2018 (UTC))
The history of the rerun (threads: WT:ELEM/Archive 31, Talk:Periodic table/Archive 11):
2017-09-05: TFA rerun proposal at WT:ELEM [2] - Jimfbleak
2017-09-10: TFA rerun proposal at Talk:PT [3] - Dank
2017-09-10: Request to postpone scheduling, wait for related RfC [4] - DePiep
2017-12-11: Created as TFA for Jan 8 [5] - Jimfbleak
2018-01-08: TFA
2018-01-22: Mistake noted re anniversary: [6] Paul 012
This shows:
a. All initiatives were taken by two TFA coordiantors, not the WP:ELEMENT editors
b. No objection was made referring to the 2019 150th anniversary
-DePiep (talk) 14:56, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
To be clear: this is not to blame or judge editors. I tried to describe the factual TL + the ambience at the time. It also shows: WP:ELEMENT editors (including me) were paying too little attention (aka 'sleeping'). -DePiep (talk) 17:52, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, suggest another RfC: One year is too soon, but I would support an RfC reducing the limit from five years to three years. Five years is excessive, IMO. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:18, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment Like Ealdgyth, I'll stay out of giving an opinion here. I'm a long-ago chemistry graduate, and when we were looking at article re-runs, I could see that those mentioned had deteriorated and needed some TLC to be run again. As has been pointed out, having selected the TFAs (which is, after all, what we are pad so handsomely to do), I notified the main editor and the project (the latter being something we don't normally do, but seemed appropriate in this case). The "initiatives taken" including consulting the relevant project, so it's not exactly forcing it through with no opportunity for objection. If any one had said then that there was a better date, I would have looked again, but that didn't happen. That has no bearing on whether it should run this year, but I don't like the implication that it was pushed down the throats of an impotent Elements project Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:23, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
re Jimfbleak: The "initiatives taken" including consulting the relevant project, so it's not exactly forcing it through with no opportunity for objection., ... I don't like the implication that it was pushed down the throats of an impotent Elements project. When listing the timeline of the rerun nomination (above), I did not write that nor did I imply that. "initiatives taken" is exactly saying what is says. There is no context, reason or suggestion that this should have a negative connotation or jugdgement. -DePiep (talk) 08:36, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment Like the other coordinators who have commented, I will not give my opinion. But shouldn't the RfC that allowed us to run an article a second time under certain circumstances be linked somewhere?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:02, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
I support this question. I'd like to understand the wikipedia mainpage philosophy behind this rule. ('Philosophy' being: how & why & what information do we present). There must be a greater Main Page concept behind this. Cynically and childishly and with ;-) I could add: which US coin would better replace this TFA? -DePiep (talk) 18:30, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
@Wehwalt: The RfC can be found at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/Archive 9#Request for comment on changes to the "Today's featured article" slot on the main page It says: The TFA coordinators may choose to fill up to two slots each week with FAs that have previously been on the main page, so long as the prior appearance was at least five years ago. I've WP:BOLD-ly added this to Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:35, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
(ec) I've reverted your interpretation [7]. For example, it also says: "Additionally, re-running featured articles would allow greater flexibility for the today's featured article slot to recognize anniversaries". An anniversary we have here. -DePiep (talk) 00:22, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

File:Cherry fruits.jpg

Been reverted by DePiep, who says that the RfC is invalid. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:16, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
No, that is not what I said. -DePiep (talk) 00:27, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
The wording is the exact wording approved in the RfC, which you reject. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:49, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
No (once again), that is not what I did. Please stop putting words in my mouth. This is what you did and what I object to: you picked a cherry without breaking it. - DePiep (talk) 10:30, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
OK then.
1. Hawkeye7 inserted half of the RfC conclusion to the instructions. Half of it. I reverted that [8].
2. Hawkeye7 twice misrepresented my editsummaries. See 'Speak for yourself'.
3. I wrote: "you picked a cherry without breaking it". That is: A. Hawkeye7 was cherry picking (selective quoting), and B. Hawkeye7 correctly claims they did not make a misspelling when cherrypicking. Sure. No cherry picked was hurt when Hawkeye7 picked it (still: it is cherrypicking).
4. User:Amakuru correctly added the full & complete text to the guideline.
(TL;DR: Hawkeye7 only copied half of the text, and twice misrepresented my edits). -DePiep (talk) 05:10, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
I have inserted the entire text of the RFC result, which has been helpfully placed in a very clear box by the closer, so the wording and scope is unambiguous. The part below that, regarding anniversaries, is to give some extra information regarding the close. Saying we may re-run TFAs on anniversaries is very clearly not intended to create exceptions to the five-year rule, but rather offered as a reason why we might want to do so when more than five years have passed. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:08, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Amakuru, the text from the RfC that you added reads: "The TFA coordinators may choose to fill up to two slots each week with FAs that have previously been on the main page, so long as the prior appearance was at least five years ago. The coordinators will invite discussion on general selection criteria for rerunnable TFAs, and aim to make individual selections within those criteria." I'm not involved with selection and scheduling at all, so if there's a problem here, the other coords will weigh in and deal with it ... but I do remember the point of the language in that last sentence. When Jimmy Wales was asked what he thought of Google's crowd-sourced effort at an encyclopedia, I recall he said "I think they'll have a lot of articles on Viagra". That's why the RfC language asked the community to give us general criteria and let us do the choosing ... because the alternative would be TFAR filling up with the FA equivalent of Viagra articles, articles intended to promote a person, place or thing. (That's not much of a problem at TFAR now, because to get a first appearance at TFA, a person has to do a lot of work and wait a long time to get something through GAN and FAC. But to get a second appearance at TFA, no work is needed at all, not even a connection to the article. So there have to be some limits, either in language or in practice, that give us some kind of brakes on bad behavior.) TFA coords do need help from the community in selecting reruns ... it just has to be done carefully. - Dank (push to talk) 15:24, 20 December 2018 (UTC) P.S. Not disreputable-bad, just bad in the sense of not in line with the goals of TFA. - Dank (push to talk) 15:39, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, and I think that's eminently sensible. Presumably it's fine for people to make suggestions or requests for something to be featured on the main page twice. For example I might consider doing so for the Rwanda article on the 60th anniversary of independence in 2022, or else for the 30th anniversary of the genocide in 2024. But the ultimate decision rests with the coords, I think that's OK, and I wouldn't expect you to entertain many requests on topics without great importance. The instructions as they stood seemed to be just wrong though, because they made no mention of the RFC result at all, and implied that it was impossible for an article to be TFAd a second time.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:29, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
I understand that TFA coordinators do not want to !vote. But I'd like to read their experienced thoughts and considerations. -DePiep (talk) 18:30, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Invitingly pinging coordinators Ealdgyth, Jimfbleak, Dank, Wehwalt. -DePiep (talk) 18:34, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
My view is the sky will not fall regardless of what is done and I don't strongly care about the outcome. This isn't my dog or my fight.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:12, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Conditional Support per WP:IAR. The 150th anniversary of one of the foundations of modern chemistry is incredibly interesting, and I believe that is reason enough to ignore our typical procedures for the number and length between TFA appearances. My support is conditioned upon finding a date of particular importance to its development (History of the periodic table gives March 6th as Mendeleev's lecture on the topic), the blurb mentioning that occasion, and it being run on that day. I am opposed to it being run on any given day of 2019 except for the 150th anniversary, and remain generally opposed to third TFA runs, this being a specific exception. As an aside, it would be nice if some coordination of the mainpage content be done for this, perhaps a chemistry-related set of DYK hooks, a chemistry related TFP, but my support is not dependent on that. Wugapodes [thɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 22:53, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. I do so only in light of the UN proclamation. No doubt some of these may be political. I don’t see any politics behind this one. Whereas the proclamation applies for the whole of 2019, a periodic table TFA would show for 1 day during that year, amidst 364 other TFAs. What’s the big deal? Conflict of interest declaration: I’m a WP:ELEM member. Sandbh (talk) 00:11, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Support The co-ordinators have always had the authority to issue a fiat allowing an otherwise ineligible article to be run; before the RfC they sometimes ran significant articles twice. The 150th anniversary is a landmark, and the article is one of the most popular. 'Tis a pity that Dmitry Mendeleev's article is such a sorry mess. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:15, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Maybe we've had fiat authority but I read the RFC as somewhat reluctant consent to run articles twice under limited circumstances. I'm not sure it would be wise for us to invoke fiat, whether or not we have it, to schedule a third run on our own, or to refuse it, when there's plenty of time to talk about things. It is reasonable for us, given that, to ask that the community discuss the matter.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:27, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Weak support. Weak because there are good reasons to keep a considerable gap between runs. Support (as a one-off) because ultimately TFA is for the readers, who are blissfully unaware of how TFAs are chosen. I'd rather see History of the periodic table or Dmitry Mendeleev (for example) run instead, but getting either of those up to scratch and through FAC in three months is a tall order. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:28, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
    @HJ Mitchell, I'm not getting the "this is what the readers want" argument at all. When it was TFA in January it got 70,755 views, which is respectable but certainly not an indication that this is some kind of high-priority topic for which the readers are crying out. As a comparator, that's considerably lower than the 87,976 views a few days later for Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed which has a decent claim to be the most obscure FA on the entire project. ‑ Iridescent 12:46, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
    January 8, 2018 was a Saturday. Periodic table and element articles have significant low hits on Saturdays/Sundays, and in holidays (see Jan 2018). OTOH, periodic table by itself has 25,000+ hits on regular working days (2018). We can read these numbers to say "this is what the readers want": of high encyclopedical interest. -DePiep (talk) 13:31, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
    @Iridescent: My argument wasn't so much "it's what the readers want" as "the readers really don't care about our internal bureaucracy fro choosing the TFA", and are unlikely to notice that it's a re-run or a re-re-run. It makes very little difference to me personally whether the periodic table is TFA next March or not, but since the main contributors are keen on it I'm inclined to defer to them (just as I would, for example, if they requested that "their" article not run again or at all). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:37, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Weak support per HJ Mitchell. COI declaration: I'm also a WP:ELEM member. Double sharp (talk) 06:03, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose because I am concerned about the precedent that this would set. FWIW, in recent years I have noticed a sharp decrease in the willingness of TFA coordinators to accommodate or look for relevant anniversaries, as can be seen at various threads on User talk:Imzadi1979/Archive 8 and User talk:Imzadi1979/Archive 7, and [9]. I am not sure that two wrongs make a right here. --Rschen7754 06:14, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
    Just for the sake of clarity---have you seen my proposal in the last paragraph of my comment above that would prevent more of such situations in the future? What do you think if we run this article when there is little regulation about second runs and simultaneously pass a rule that would, in particular, explicitly make those relevant to an article to be re-run check whether there were any big dates coming? This new regulation would prevent other similar situations and, if it had been active back in 2017, would have prevented even this situation.--R8R (talk) 08:40, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
    I don't see how, because the rule is not binding. --Rschen7754 04:59, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
    I see I both times forgot to add that if those who wished to re-nominate an article were explicitly said to check for any upcoming big dates, they would only have themselves to blame if they actually missed one, and it would be absolutely fair to have a third run prohibited (as opposed to a situation when a possibility of an upcoming big date was not considered). That's how any further third runs are to be prevented and that's what would've prevented this one had the rule been active in 2017.--R8R (talk) 17:00, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Further comment Since we have been asked to expand our thoughts, like Wehwalt I don't see this as righting great wrongs issue, and I won't lose sleep either way, despite being a chemist. This RFC is essential though, since we have been accused of being high-handed when just doing what we have been asked to do, let alone one-offs. I agree with Double sharp that it would be better to get History of the periodic table or Dmitry Mendeleev to FA, which would be an ideal solution, but whether the Elements project could get that done, I don't know. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:46, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
    It's impossible. Both articles are C class, with large unreferenced sections, and need a lot of work to get ready; but even if they were FAC-ready right now, it takes three months to get an article through FAC, so by the time they were promoted the deadline for a March TFA date would have passed. Aside: We've been working on Buzz Aldrin since October. It can't go to FAC before Apollo 11 is promoted, which probably won't be until February. That means that a likely FAC date is May. At that point TFA nominations will be being taken for July, so it will only just make a July 2019 TFA. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:40, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
    re Jimfbleak, since we have been accused of being high-handed when just doing: Above, I have responded [10] just now, and already 1.5 days before. There is no such "accusation" in there, it is a factual timeline with diffs & complete-talk links. Could you consider undoing the statement? Especially since you note that it is "essential" in this RfC (which to me clearly it is not because it is incorrect). -DePiep (talk) 08:46, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
DePiep OK, I'm not looking to cause unnecessary grief, so I've struck those parts of my comments above Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:45, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Still, it is not about you causing "grieve". It is: no grieve was intended or done (towards you & yours). -DePiep (talk) 02:12, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If it had been a few years that would be fine, but the second featuring was just this year, so I don't see it as legitimate or necessary to feature it yet again. And I don't think we're short of articles waiting to appear. Give other articles a chance.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:38, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Clarification: This RfC originated in a mistake made with best intentions. We shouldn't have run Periodic table as TFA in 2018, given 2019 was going to be its 150th anniversary. Unfortunately we did run it in a sincere effort to top up the TFA reserve, oblivious of the pickle this would place us in 2019. Under these circumstance the RfC is not about a three-peat, or a bad idea, or running the TFA again too soon, or setting a precedent, or a question of legitimacy, or not giving other articles a chance. Rather, we are seeking to make up for an own goal and to continue our fine tradition of flagging significant anniversaries. Sandbh (talk) 23:53, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. TFA is to show off a FA that changes. A significant gap is needed to avoid being repetitiously boring and to highlight other FAs, and 1 year is not long enough. WP would wind up showing the 365 most “important” ones by editor fans over & over and few or no other choices. Need to give consideration to readers and drawing them to new info by curiosity on an unknown topic. But here most already know of this one, and most simply do not care for it so would be uninclined to revisit in frequent reruns. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 16:12, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. I've been looking and asking on when would be broken if a FA were TFA a second time. That is: what are the absolutely blocking reasons? Clearly there are none. I't just a very old guideline.
Then, in 2017, the Let's-rerun TFAs RfC was started, clearly because the number of FAs was getting too low. (Rough calculation: stats as of today says: 5418 FAs, of these 971 were never TFA. 4447 TFAs is 12.2 years, TFA started August 2004. To add here: former FAs that were TFA). Since TFA-interested editors (including coordinators) agreed on there being a shortage, there must be an extra criteria in play, one that made the available "971" FAs not fit for TFA. I assume there is a 'wider quality' judgement. I have no problem with that, just noting that there must be. Anyway, the RfC made reruns possible. No argument was made that repetition should be avoided because of a principle. The criteria "not within five years" was added, and coordinators were invited to develop criteria (through discussion) for reselection. AFAIK, these criteria have not materialised yet.
So here we are: reruns accepted, Main Page not broken. I do stress and advocate that reruns are not corrupting the Main page; not in its concept, intention, quality, or reception. Arguments "repetition is boring" and "a rerun takes another FAs place" are not correct, nor are they actually strong or convincingly valid (a boring repetition after 5 years?, rerunning "Periodic table" is boring but running a fresh "History of the periodic table" is not?, and as described there are not enough FAs whose place would be taken). Arguing "a rule is a rule" I cannot weigh, since after all we are allowed to claim exception within the TFA /instructions, before even invoking WP:IAR.
Then WP:ELEMENTS members, including me, made the mistake of missing the 150th anniversary of the periodic table just 1,5 years before. We members should apoligise, especially to people concerned with such quality points (that is including members ourselves). I hereby do once more. That said, I see no problem in correcting this error by rerunning once more at the anniversary. This result is even within the TFA /instructions: "If you have an exceptional request that deviates from these instructions ...", so no WP:IAR claim needed (but please do keep that principle in mind). The article Periodic table is hugely important both in science (major discovery [11]) and in Wikipedia (25k views per day = the topmost science article [12]). It would not hurt Main page nor Wikipedia. -DePiep (talk) 10:14, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
FYI: the TFA/instructions already say: "If you have an exceptional request that deviates from these instructions ...", so proposing an exception is explicitly allowed (even without invoking WP:IAR). That is what Discussion pages are for. As this thread shows, editors are well capable to recognise and prevent some 'automated slippery slope precedents'. That is why it is called "exception". BTW, no rule cvhange is proposed here, so WP:CREEP does not apply. -DePiep (talk) 13:44, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Iridescent. Once on the FP should be sufficient, twice isn't great but that's already happening. Three times is too much, especially as this particular article was only on the FP last year. - SchroCat (talk) 13:11, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
"Once ... should be sufficient" for what? Allowing a rerun already is a guideline. Where is that mythical argument that reruns are bad? (I don't mean !votes). -~~-DePiep (talk) 13:37, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
@DePiep:, please desist from bludgeoning the discussion. Many thanks. ——SerialNumber54129 13:51, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
Indeed: thanks SN for that! DePiep, I have already acknowledged that articles are able to run more than once ("twice isn't great but that's already happening", if you can't see it). I don't like it too much, but three times: no, no, no - particularly as the last time was only a year ago and it didn't break records for number of viewers. I don't want to enter into discussion about this: you've already said much, much more than needs to be said, you don't have to come back and comment again on this. - SchroCat (talk) 16:17, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
SchroCat: The post re WP:BLUDGEON by Serial Number 54129 was to the point indeed and I took note + thanked SN. However, your reply here is introducing an undesired tone & direction. In this thread I sincerely tried to find out how or why a rerun would harm our Main Page. For this, I discerned between personal opinion and general arguments. Your post here read to be of the first type (idontlikeit), and so I asked to enheighten your opinion into a more reusable (non-personal) argument. Apparently this failed, but still there is no reason or right to tell me to shut up as you did. - DePiep (talk) 20:10, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
I haven’t told you to shut up, but I will do soon if you keep needling me or others. Step away, and don’t ping me again. My oppose !vote on this is not "I don't like it", despite your inaccurate claim to the contrary, but entirely in line with the RfC that 'allowed' re-runs:

The TFA coordinators may choose to fill up to two slots each week with FAs that have previously been on the main page, so long as the prior appearance was at least five years ago. The coordinators will invite discussion on general selection criteria for rerunnable TFAs, and aim to make individual selections within those criteria.

I have made entirely clear that my !vote was not for a third run "especially as this particular article was only on the FP last year", so don't claim it was solely on the basis that I don't like it - that's just not true. - SchroCat (talk) 22:36, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
Despicable. -DePiep (talk) 02:17, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose setting a precedent; Neutral on this particular one. I'm not keen on a third TFA when the second was so recent, but I have no strong opinion. I feel strongly that this should not be taken as any kind of precedent. Running an article on the main page a second time is not desirable; it's an unfortunate necessity. I hope there are no future instances. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:15, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - rerunning articles was suggested and only accepted because of a shrinking pool of available TFAs. This proposal would seem to ignore why reruns were even allowed in the first place. We are breaking the trust of those who only reluctantly supported the original proposal ("give them a finger and they will take a hand" sort of situation). As for this particular case, if the anniversary was so important, it should simply had been taken into account already, instead of having been TFA last year. The time would be better spent preparing a new, relevant FA for the slot. FunkMonk (talk) 14:30, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. The world won't end if we post this a third time. Let's not do it with every FA though. Calidum 20:31, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose—as the saying goes, "a lack of planning on the part of others does not constitute an emergency on mine." In short, interested editors should have looked ahead for future anniversaries and suggested a different date last time. That they didn't is unfortunate, but allowing this to run again outside of the already allowed exception to the rule that TFAs only run once would allow others to argue that this exception set a precedent for others to make similar requests even if we closed with consensus that it was a one-time-only allowance. Imzadi 1979 → 23:21, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose The article gets lots of traffic every day and the additional attention from having it as FA again would be insignificant. Better to keep the FA slot for a more obscure topic that would benefit more from the exposure. Andrew D. (talk) 23:25, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I am against running an article on the main page for a third time, particularly when they are still plenty of . If the 2019 date was so important, then the 2018 date should have been postponed/cancelled (as already noted by FunkMonk); I am against running the same article again after only a year. I agree with Andrew Davidson that the article already receives a lot of traffic as it currently stands. Aoba47 (talk) 23:44, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
  • It's not the fault of the article maintainers if an article is selected by the TFA coordinators. I get advance warning that an article is going to be run but I don't know if everybody does. I got one article postponed this year but we had no luck with getting Apollo 8 for Christmas Eve. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:20, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I am still opposing running an article on the main page of a third time, particularly given the last time was this year, when there are articles that have not even appeared on the main page once. I am also worried that it would set a precedent. If this article is allowed to run for a third time on the main page, then why shouldn't others be allowed at some point as well? If this is the only article allowed to run for a third time with no other exceptions, it could be interpreted as preferential treatment. Sorry, but I am opposed to this. Aoba47 (talk) 03:44, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Comment On WT:ELEM we have suggested rerunning germanium as an alternative (which would only be the 2nd time, the first having been in 2009), as it was one of Mendeleev's predicted elements whose discoveries were the most striking application of the periodic law. The blurb could be written to reflect this historical signifiance of Ge. Double sharp (talk) 03:11, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Suggest doing any necessary cleanup and nominate it at TFA/R or the template at WT:TFA/R.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:23, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Comment: Much concern has been expressed about setting a precedent for running a TFA for a third time, and doing so after less than a year has passed since the TFA was run for the second time. Requests have also been made for running other more deserving articles.

Yes, we will set a 5-headed precedent that looks like this:

1. In good faith, a TFA coordinator approaches a project (WP:CHEM in this case) asking if they would like to run Periodic table as TFA for the second time, in light of a shortage of suitable FA articles.
2. In good faith, the project nominates the article.
3. The TFA coordinator and the project overlook the fact that there will be a 150th anniversary associated with the article in 2019.
4. The article reappears as TFA in 2018.
5. The UN declares 2019 will be the international year of the article’s subject.

Yes, if the RfQ gets up, the article will appear for the third time on the one day in 2019 corresponding to the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first periodic table. That will leave 364 slots during 2019 available for more deserving articles.

The traffic that the article currently receives has nothing to do with the RfC, which is to honour the 150th anniversary.

Yes, well-intentioned mistakes were made by all concerned. In these circumstances we can either use our own policies and anxieties to beat our selves up or we can forgive ourselves, and still honour the applicable day.

The only precedent we will set is being open to three-peats, where the five historical events that occurred in this case, as outlined above, recur. Good luck with ever seeing that sequence of events happening again I feel that the likelihood of a recurrence of this sequence events is insignificant. Sandbh (talk) 11:04, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose. A worthy proposal, but there is nothing overwhelming here. English Wikipedia is not a mouthpiece of the United Nations, even if we might share some of their aims. Chemistry is not an overwhelmingly important field of study such that it eclipses all other topics and requires absolutely exceptional special treatment. The United Nations should not have a role, even indirect, in dictating what should be on the Wikipedia Main Page. There are dozens, hundreds of other ideas where topics can be special for many different reasons, and it does not improve the process to make this a path to that. MPS1992 (talk) 22:09, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Conditional support if there is no other FA related to the periodic table ready by March 1, 2019, and the TFA coordinators are willing to bend the five-year rule on this. At WT:ELEM (which I am also a member of - WP:COI declaration), germanium has been discussed as an alternative among several other articles (albeit less likely in two months, per HJ Mitchell) - I agree with FunkMonk on this. A one-off three-peat couldn't hurt, though, as the periodic table is a fundamental concept in science and there is only ever one 150th anniversary. Nevertheless, I would oppose setting a precedent with this barring other exceptional circumstances. ComplexRational (talk) 15:48, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rwandan Civil War - 1 October 2020?

My above article was promoted to FA today (yay!). It's probably too early to be discussing this, as I see the requests only go up to January next year, but just as a heads up/query, I was thinking it might be nice to feature it on 1 October 2020, which will be the 30th anniversary of the start of the war. If there's anything in particular I need to do to request that date or stop the article being featured on another date please let me know. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 13:51, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Gratz! The standard page for that is WP:TFAP (and it only goes up a year, but sometimes people indicate dates farther out ... you can add it if you like and we'll see whether the other coords are okay with it). Jim will be scheduling that month. - Dank (push to talk) 14:53, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm cool with it. I've sometimes gone a bit over a year, just because I didn't want it to slip my mind. And congratulations!--Wehwalt (talk) 14:58, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks guys. Felt like a bit of a marathon at times! Now I have to decide what to work in next... 🤔 Will go ahead and make the prospective request for the date as a placeeholder then.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:47, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Amakuru, congratulations from me too. I've no problem with it being added to that page. It's pretty likely to run, although no absolute guarantees since it's conceivable, though unlikely, that a centenary or 50th anniversary might be nominated on the same date. I had a date last year which had competing 20/25/50th anniversaries! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:10, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I've got some concerns about what's happening on that page; comments there would be very welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 14:41, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

  • Support topic ban for User:Kevin McE from all main-page-related articles, broadly construed. ——SerialNumber54129 14:46, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
    What's the problem? You don't have to agree with all of Kevin's points, but I thought you (Dan) set that page up precisely so that Kevin could do his thing and give you a longer lead time to decide what to do with them. If you think he's being overly pedantic, you're quite within your rights to say so; if you can't reach a compromise and one of you then feels strongly enough to pursue it, you can bring it to a higher-profile venue, like this talk page, for a third opinion and/or ask the article's main author(s) or the other TFA coordinators for their thoughts. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:10, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
    Sadly, what I want and what the world offers are two different things. (Also, I'm recused for a week.) It's true that there are some larger questions about how WP:ERRORS works or should work, but generally, when we're looking for broader community feedback, it's better to strip out the politics and just ask people for edits or for opinions on edits. After we see the feedback, then we'll figure out what it means and what to do about it. (There's a relevant conversation at WT:ERRORS, which I already pointed people to in the previous thread.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:17, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
    Okay, recusing didn't work well either, so I'm back at work at WP:ERRORS now, as needed. I'm pretty disappointed by the comments I've been seeing about TFA these past two months, but it's understandable; the atmosphere at ERRORS has put a lot of people in a sour mood. For now, when we get a complaint about a blurb that's going to require more than a quick reply, I'll try pinging the FAC nominator and FAC supporters. I'm sorry for the inconvenience; maybe at some point we'll be able to go back to doing things the way we've been doing them for the last four years, largely without complaints. - Dank (push to talk) 02:09, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

WP:ERRORS ... last call

These are the all the changes we've seen to blurbs in response to comments at WP:ERRORS over the last two weeks, not counting minor issues with images. (The edit on the 14th added a late change to the article, and the one on the 7th was my preference as well, although it was different from the article text.) Increasingly, the recent changes to the blurbs are being carried over to the articles. The number of suggestions in the TFA section of ERRORS that admins are not acting on is also way, way up (mainly the work of one editor), which doesn't seem to me to be having a good effect on how that page operates. Is this the way you guys want the ERRORS page to work, and if not, what do you want to do about it? I've been asking for help with this problem for a while, and I'm grateful for the responses, but nothing so far has been effective altered any general trends. - Dank (push to talk) 13:40, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Reducing max initial blurb size by 50 characters

I think we're going to have to reduce the upper limit on blurb size to 1025 characters. The advertised range has been 925 to 1075 characters for a while now, but I rarely went over 1025, and that's what Main Page people are expecting. Some of the blurb reviews that we've just started doing on the talk pages of successful FAC nominations have been pushing the count close to 1075. If we let that continue, it's going to require renegotiation with the Main Page folks, and this would be exactly the wrong time to be doing that. Sorry. - Dank (push to talk) 20:51, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

On a 16x9 aspect ratio monitor (i.e. full Wikipedia version) the TFA runs about 100 characters per line (a bit more due to the picture). A variance of +/- 50 characters will add, at most one extra line of text to the left column. The right column varies by that much or more on a daily basis, in general 1-2 lines of whitespace aren't a problem, and I don't see the inherent need to worry about adding or losing a line of text here or there. Every once in a while we have to add or drop an ITN blurb or a DYK blurb to balance things out. This is not an emergency, and the original guidance of 925-1075 is fine. If it runs 1075 it doesn't create any problem at all. --Jayron32 20:57, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. (I'm waiting to see if there are more comments before I provide a little more background.) - Dank (push to talk) 21:09, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
A margin of 50 characters is unlikely to make much difference as long as lengths are reasonably consistent. As Jayron says, it's easy enough to adjust the other three squares to fit. So if you need an extra 50 characters to explain a complex subject or just because the article has an unusually long name, don't lose sleep over it. Nothing will ever be perfect, and the advantage of the wiki system is that everything can be fixed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:39, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Be mindful both of mobile (Minerva) and responsive (Timeless) skins. :) --Izno (talk) 22:16, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Mobile users are obviously important, but since mobile viewers don't see DYK or OTD the need to balance lengths is irrelevant. Timeless, you can disregard; the WMF scrapped support for it when they abandoned WP:WINTER, and it's now an ultraniche hobby project (1533 accounts with it enabled at the time of writing, some of which are presumably either abandoned accounts or secondary test accounts. Other than a handful of presumably test accounts who choose to use the Minerva skin on desktop Wikipedia, it's the least-used of all the currently-active skins by multiple orders of magnitude. ‑ Iridescent 15:05, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
I use Timeless, which is why I mentioned it. That aside, it is not the only responsive skin (Monobook is now responsive), and while I haven't played with that to see if there are similar limitations that Timeless has (notably, article width), I expect future skins to take a similar view as to "let's make the skins we provide responsive by default". --Izno (talk) 15:42, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
And I'm fairly certain Timeless was started after Winter fell through the hoops, so whether WMF ever 'supported' it in a meaningful sense is a bit neither-here-nor-there; that it's a volunteer project is irrelevant since it is enabled as a selectable skin. --Izno (talk) 15:43, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Just as some more data points; the last two days I've had to remove an OTD blurb to balance white space because the left column is actually too short. So it does not seem like TFA blurbs need to be shortened anymore. --Jayron32 11:52, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Okay, several points here:

  • No one has proposed changing the lower limit on the character count (925), so the short blurbs won't be getting any shorter.
  • The limits on blurbs only apply to the blurb as initially written (almost always by me or by a TFAR nominator). The new process that starts after a FAC nom is promoted is meant to be a vetting process. It wouldn't be much of a vetting process if we gave people narrow guidelines for what they're allowed to suggest, so if they want a 3000 character blurb, that's on them. I don't think that would go over well at WP:ERRORS, so I can't recommend it, but if they want longer blurbs, we could always try it and see what happens.
  • ERRORS people are more likely to complain if they perceive the blurb as being too complex. I don't have any good way of measuring complexity. The only advice I can give is: the shorter the blurb, the less likely you are to get pushback on it.
  • Blurbs very rarely went over 1050 in 2018, and usually not over 1025. The only reason I ever mentioned 1075 as an upper limit was because we used to get the occasional blurb where people insisted on a complex narrative, such as this one from 2016 (1189 characters). That's not a problem these days. - Dank (push to talk) 00:01, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Ah, sorry, my mistake, I just changed the section name to "reducing max initial blurb size ...". That was part of the misunderstanding here. Also ... this all assumes that the blurb has an image, but almost all of the blurbs do, these days. - Dank (push to talk) 17:08, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Dodgy

What kind of dodgy process is this, letting an unconverted "miles" onto the main page? Looks like the coordinators and scrutineers are plain lazy. Tony (talk) 00:28, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Blurb reviews

Since the 21st, I've been posting suggested TFA blurbs to the talk pages of FAC noms when the FACs are promoted. Most of these are getting feedback, and all of the feedback has been useful. I started off pinging when I posted them, but that's probably not necessary now. Anyone is welcome to edit these or ask questions, of course. - Dank (push to talk) 03:08, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Result of recent RfC?

Fairly recently, it was discussed on whether periodic table could rerun for TFA for a third time. The first time was a regular running. The second time was suggested by TFA coordinators, who asked the members of the relevant WikiProject WP:ELEM to see it was okay with them, which it was. What everybody missed, however, was that an important date was coming up: on March 1, 2019, the periodic table will be having its 150th anniversary. It was asked on this very page whether an exception could be made given the incredible importance of the topic in question. Ealdgyth suggested this should be decided by the wider community. Soon enough, an RfC was held. Based on the vote count, it was roughly a tie (10--13, according to my calculations). However, it is the arguments that count, right? Now, both sides made their points, and unfortunately enough, that was it. Nobody declared a final result given the strength of those arguments.

@TFA coordinators Dear coordinators, could you please take your time to check the discussion and announce the final result? (I personally favored allowing this exception, but I'd rather hear an explicit no and say "at least I tried" than have the issue die wordlessly, and ideally, I'd love to hear an explicit yes. One way or another, there should be an explicit result.) Whether this exception could be made or not, I'd also like you to take into consideration my suggestion I made in that discussion that is intended to prevent arising of similar situations in the future. I think it would be great to have Wikipedia as user-friendly as possible.--R8R (talk) 22:35, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Well I think everyone agreed, even those in support, that the rules did not support the rerunning for a third time. So it would have needed a solid majority to come out and declare IAR support to have gone through. But in fact the numbers were against the proposal as you say. My assumption is that this isn't going to happen, but others may disagree.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:15, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm not scheduling March, so it's not my final call. However, despite having a chemistry degree and having spent much of my career using it, having regarding to our established procedures and the result of the RFC, I wouldn't run it if it were my decision. Having said that, I don't think it's appropriate for me to close the RFC Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:39, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

January 2019 TFA stats

@TFA coordinators January 2019 TFA stats are now available at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/recent TFAs/January 2019. The FACBot had a problem with the MediaWiki Pageviews API (one of the articles had a slash in its name). This has been corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:35, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Amazing ... I don't know how you got the bot to produce all those columns, but thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 02:51, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
And John/Eleanor giving Bradley a bit of competition... Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:50, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Away

I'm going to be away during the week (back on weekends Saturdays) for the next few weeks, working on a big Wikipedia project. {{@TFA}} works to get the attention of the TFA coords, if needed. I'd appreciate it if people would keep an eye on changes to TFA blurbs, especially late changes, and use your own judgment ... if people don't seem to know the blurb rules, encouraging them or inviting discussion (at WP:ERRORS, if it's less than 24 hours before the blurb appears on the Main Page) generally works best. - Dank (push to talk) 15:29, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

TFA being vandalised: Forca Bruta

I made a request at WP:RPP 12 hours ago, and it remained unaddressed until now--I had to contact a few admins directly until one familiar with page-protection finally helped; but in the time they had not yet, the article had been vandalized by IPs almost hourly. A newcomer's first attempt to contribute to the project should not be at a complete article, on the day it is featured for visitors to the main page to see. These articles are supposed to represent the project's best, but leaving them vulnerable to these kind of edits--the word "was" was removed from the lead; earlier it was simply defaced--is embarrassing. I was told by Dank that on main page day, these articles would probably get protection automatically. What happened? How can--on the day this article will get significant attention and readership--it be left so exposed? Its topic is not popular, and practically no one will likely read it after today. Disappointing. Must I police the article in anticipation of these scenarios? Dan56 (talk) 13:24, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

You have a misconception: Articles are never complete. We have always had a strong disposition not to protect the main page content preemptively and especially not the featured article. You will need a strong consensus for that change. I do not think Dank was correct at any point regarding protection of the FA. You are allowed to WP:SHEPHERD the article. --Izno (talk) 14:23, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
All I said was "they are getting some form of protection on Main Page day more often than not, last I checked" ... which is true, but I haven't been checking in March (and February? Not sure). If you're saying vandalism has been dropping and they're not getting protected as often now, that's great. (I just checked the last 2 before this one, and neither of them was protected on its Main Page day.) - Dank (push to talk) 14:28, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Ah, okay. Yes, your quotation clarifies the misinterpretation on the part of the other Dan. --Izno (talk) 14:53, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
It subsequently turn out it was merely an overreaction from the OP to ten or so edits :D stand down. ——SerialNumber54129 17:24, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
To put it another way, it averaged one problematic edit per hour. Unbelievable :D Cheers, ——SerialNumber54129 17:35, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
It has remained only "ten or so" because I did something to get the article protected. Only constructive edits from people who know what they're doing at the article since then, it "turn out". Dan56 (talk) 17:30, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
"articles are reviewed as featured article candidates for accuracy, neutrality, completeness..." Dan56 (talk) 17:32, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
"completeness" therein does not mean "thou shalt never edit this article again because we are Done", it means "we've covered the majority or even all of the material we need to cover in an article on this topic". --Izno (talk) 17:45, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict)​ Your first TFA, huh?  :) yeah, per Izno, it's deemed counterproductive for the encyclopedia anyone can edit to promote an article...that actually no-one can edit. Personallly I take mine off my watchlist for the day. WP:NODEADLINE, and all that. I think wat Dank meant is that TFAs generally end up being protected, though they don't start that way. ——SerialNumber54129 14:32, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Aha! Yes, that's what I meant, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 15:01, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Don't condescend, Serial Number 54129. And by the way, anyone can now not edit the article, because it has been protected. Because there were only disruptive edits being done. Because IP and new-user accounts that flood TFAs are unlikely to make constructive edits, if not entirely bad-faith edits. Dan56 (talk) 16:31, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Its only protected because you peremptorilly demanded it. For a TfA, the article only had 10 IP edits prior to its protection—flooding TFA indeed. And why you felt the need to open the same conversation in five different places, I'll never know. Cheers, ——SerialNumber54129 16:42, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
You'll never know unless you ask. Which you didn't. Why you even brought it up, I'll never know... Dan56 (talk) 17:19, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity...

What's the significance of the Wren quote on the TFA page? RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 10:38, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

"Reader, if you seek a monument, look around you", iirc ——SerialNumber54129 10:53, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
One function of TFA is to be a monument to the immense work that people have put into Featured Articles over the years ... see the archives (WP:TFAA). Btw, Ravenpuff ... why the WP:AOTD shortcut? I've never seen that acronym, and it adds ambiguity ... these are Featured Articles, not random articles selected for the day. - Dank (push to talk) 12:30, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the context. I kind of supposed that there might conceivably be some searches for "article of the day", which is why I added that shortcut. You can remove it if you don't think it's useful. RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 13:37, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
How about WP:FAD  :) ——SerialNumber54129 14:45, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

WT:ERRORS#Blurbs for FAs promoted in January

Just a ping. - Dank (push to talk) 23:13, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Also see WT:ERRORS#Unwatching (but still here). (Bottom line: I won't be writing the blurbs whenever someone else beats me to it, and I'm unwatching WP:ERRORS). - Dank (push to talk) 21:53, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Also see WT:FAC#WT:ERRORS#Blurbs for FAs promoted in January ... five new blurb reviews for FAs promoted in January but not scheduled at TFA, and three that are scheduled for late April. - Dank (push to talk) 22:15, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, when did blurbs start to be written right after article promotion? And it seems new FAs become TFAs by default? FunkMonk (talk) 13:36, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
At a guess—assuming the premise is correct—it might be a means of maintaining equilibrium between military FAs...and everything else. See WP:FA: the former outweigh the latter massively, so non-warfare FAs are probably in greater demand, pro rata. ——SerialNumber54129 13:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Blurbs were written for all the FAs promoted January 21 or later, and as of a few days ago, January 1 or later (see the WT:FAC thread for the links to those). We've had something like 10 comments ranging from positive to very positive over the new policy ... it makes it easier for the article nominators and supporters to participate, it's fresher in their memory, and ERRORS people are happier this way, for reasons that they'd have to explain. You're both talking about scheduling ... which has nothing to do with it, I'm not involved in scheduling, I only do blurbs, and the idea here was to get more people involved in blurbs. - Dank (push to talk) 15:06, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
@Dank: did you ever see my comment about this that I made the other day? I can't remember where that was now, but my suggestion was that we should take this process one step further by actually integrating it with the FAC itself, and having nominators actively approve or improve the blurb at the same time as they review the article. That way, later disputes about the wording could be countered by the fact that they were as well-vetted as the FA itself. I don't know if you think that's something that would make sense? I might suggest it as a formal proposal at WT:FAC unless there are major reasons not to. THanks  — Amakuru (talk) 15:11, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
I did see it, and replied, saying that I didn't think that it would go over well ... but that I'm not positive about that, and that you're welcome to suggest it. I don't have a preference one way or the other. - Dank (push to talk) 15:34, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
It would just be extra work in an already slow (and gradually slowing down) process, so I don't think it would be popular. I think the current way (on the FAC talk page after the fact) is fine, as it's informal and not time-limited. FunkMonk (talk) 15:43, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there a copy-editing process for older articles?

Today's article (promoted 2007) is the least well copy-edited FA I've seen in a while that wasn't on a celebrity. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:14, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@Espresso Addict: I'm afraid this is all there is  ;) ——SerialNumber54129 12:18, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
@TFA coordinators Then I think the TfA coords need to institute one, or stick to more-recent TfAs. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:23, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Espresso Addict, no, we don't have a copy-editing process, although at least one old article I ran earlier this month I did tweak a bit. We can't just run recent ones, the supply has been inadequate for years now, so you either get old ones (many of which are actually quite well-maintained) or you get repeated TFAs or you don't have a new TFA every day. If you or others are willing to copy edit scheduled TFAs you think are defective, that's great; that would obviously help maintain the quality of TFA. If you are just suggesting someone else does it, not so good Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:32, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
I'm perfectly willing to give the occasional TfA a quick once over, if given a bit of notice, on a topic I'm interested in (which does not include military trivia of the current sort). I don't want to have to do it while tired and stressed because OMG this is on the mainpage Right Now!!! Espresso Addict (talk) 12:48, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
As far as military trivia goes, I'm rather surprised that WP:MILHIST don't watch their own articles; perhaps this slipped through the net. But in this particular case, I think they're the people to talk to. For all other stuff...I dunno, post here and see what happens eh? ——SerialNumber54129 12:57, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
EA: I've never seen any evidence that people want TFA coords to play some special role in copyediting articles, or overseeing copyediting. If someone decided to set up such a process, I wouldn't be involved. Thanks for your copyediting, it's much appreciated. Your other question is harder, and there's no sweeping it under the rug: year by year, we're running out of Featured Articles that have never appeared at TFA before, but we're expected to run everything, eventually, so over time, the choices get harder. (Easy for me to say this, I know, since I'm not involved in scheduling.) The last relevant RfC was well-attended, but new discussions are always welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 14:20, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
I would have thought that GOCE would be happy to look at them, if they were posted on Requests two or three weeks in advance. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:24, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
@Dank: Someone, IMO, needs to make sure all TfAs are in good shape prior to going live on the main page. They are supposed to represent our very best work to the world. If the TfA coordinators do not consider themselves to be responsible for that, someone else needs to take on the responsibility, probably from the wider Featured Article project or the main-page quality-control people in general (though these past few days that's seemed a very small group). At very least that would involve identifying older TfAs (I don't know what the age profile of TfAs is these days?), finding someone to give them a once over to see whether more is needed, and if necessary then asking at the Guild or a relevant Wikiproject, or a list of interested copy editors who can work strictly within the FA MoS. I'd be willing to add my name to the last, though I don't usually work to FA MoS.
On the wider question, if we are promoting fewer than one FA a day over the long term, then starting now to sprinkle in recycled ones would seem reasonable. I assume no-one wants to consider more radical suggestions, such as featuring, say, good articles or featured lists in the slot?? Espresso Addict (talk) 01:32, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
@Gog the Mild: I would hope the Guild of Copy Editors would be prepared to assist, but imagine like everyone else these days they are finding their resources stretched thin. Unless they are a lot more healthy than most other maintenance projects, they certainly can't reasonably be expected to check all TfAs proactively to see whether a copy edit is necessary. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:32, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
While I am sure that the GOCE coordinators will have an opinion, @Miniapolis and Reidgreg: as an active member I would point out that GOCE is in robust good health and that although I understood the discussion above to be about copy editing only the older FAs, the newer ones are likely to require less work to the point that at least some attention to all may be possible. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:36, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping, Gog. All I can advise is to list them on WP:GOCE/REQ as needed; that being said, however, I've been active in the GOCE for a while and we don't have as much help as we used to. We do our best. Miniapolis 13:55, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
The blurb length problem has become harder just recently ... we were averaging no more than 2 blurbs a month without images, so the shorter length made sense, but just recently the number of blurbs without images seems to have gone up. I'll ask around about several of the relevant issues and get back to you. For the rest of it ... I'm sorry, I won't have time for a new copyediting project, I'm trying to get another project off the ground (which I mentioned recently at WT:FAC) before I do anything else. My understanding with the other TFA coords is that they're responsible for scheduling and I'm not, so I'll defer to them on most of your questions (but I can offer opinions if they ask for them). You might want to skim the RfC I linked; a few people brought up the same issues you're bringing up. Of course, we're two years down the road from that RfC now, so maybe it's time for another big discussion. - Dank (push to talk) 03:11, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Dank. I'm rushed off my feet atm, but will take a look at the RfC, as I don't see these problems curing themselves. Interested in your new project, but couldn't find it at WT:FAC; has it been archived somewhere? Espresso Addict (talk) 03:51, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
It did get archived ... I'll explain here, after the current issues are sorted. - Dank (push to talk) 03:59, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
EA, quoting you from WT:DYK: "It does seem as if it would be possible to have two lengths – one with image, one without – so that routine cases would be covered." ... it looks like you're suggesting that we write two versions of the blurb for each day, because that approach would work best for the column width that we've been using on the Main Page, that some people consider more attractive (55% for TFA's column, instead of 50-50) ... did I understand right? - Dank (push to talk) 13:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
I may come to regret this, but if it were felt it would be useful, I would be prepared to cast an eye over forthcoming TFAs, either copy editing them myself or directing them to WP:GOCE/REQ. In an ideal world three or four weeks advance warning for each would be good. I have little grasp of the inner workings of the TFA process, but do have some familiarity of copy editing articles at FA level, some familiarity with reviewing at FAC, and have put six articles through FAC so far this year. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:25, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
That would be great! If you pull up WP:TFAA and click on May, you'll find 31 articles locked and loaded. - Dank (push to talk) 19:33, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
That's a very generous offer, Gog the Mild! Thank you! And I'm glad that GOCE is in robust health. I've not found that to be so for most other areas of the 'pedia. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:32, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
From the WP:GOCE/REQ archives, the last TFAs we copy edited were one each in January 2018 and January 2016. So we haven't done many of them, but we're certainly willing, time permitting. – Reidgreg (talk) 20:21, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Espresso Addict, I haven't found a solution yet, but it appears to me that we're not going to have the same problems in May that we had in April. May has been scheduled, and there were four blurbs without images. I've added images to two of them, and one of them (the 8th) is a blurb written by the WP:TFAR nominator that is 1443 (!) characters long (too long, not too short). The fourth one (the 26th) is History of Aston Villa F.C. (1961–present). I'd rather not make the call on which image to add to that one, but it looks like there are several possibilities ... anyone want to pick one? - Dank (push to talk) 02:57, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@Dank: Thanks for the ping, I got engrossed in another debate and forgot to check back here. At least now the main-page admins are back from Easter break things should be easier! If there's only one or two a month without images then the problem is much less pressing. Looking at the above, I wouldn't suggest proactively writing two blurbs -- many articles have no problems at all with the image, and it would seem just a waste of everyone's time. But where there is no obvious candidate for an image, an extra longer blurb just in case would be very useful. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:32, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Makes sense, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 12:11, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Sorry - I've been on the road (closing on our new house) but ... I'll note that current TFA practice is to schedule a month at a time, and we generally have the next month up sometime between the 10th and the 20th of the preceeding month. They are located at [[Wikipedia:Today's featured article/MONTH YEAR]] - so May is at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 2019, and June will be at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 2019. When I schedule, I generally check older noms to at least make sure they don't appear to have degraded too bad, but I trust that the rest of the wikipedia editors will not have allowed our best work to degrade too badly. If folks worry about future TFAs, like I said, they are scheduled well in advance so that they can be gone over and checked over. You can also look at User:Dweller/Featured Articles that haven't been on Main Page - and see if any that aren't red checked marked need to be red-check marked (I don't schedule red checked ones from that list). It would be a great help if folks took deficient FAs to Wikipedia:Featured article review as well as helping out there, as there are very few editors working on the FARs. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:21, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi Ealdgyth. Just checking: are you suggesting that checking TFAs after they have been scheduled is unnecessary/redundant? Which would suit me fine - time spent doing that comes straight out of my content creation budget. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:22, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Nah, I'm just pointing out that if folks want to check them over and/or copyedit them, they are usually scheduled a bit in advance, so there isn't the pressure of "they are going on the main page tomorrow" that used to be with Raul's scheduling in the past. I won't claim that I do a full copyedit when I schedule ... I just try to make sure it's not degraded too much. Dweller did a lot of good work culling out the early FAs that were in crappy shape - I don't schedule any that they marked as deficient - but I can't say that I copyedit anything I schedule either. I'll point out that scheduling is pretty much something that takes me a day or two - first you have to actually figure out what you're going to schedule - that takes a good day or day and a half. Then the actual process of slotting the things into the system takes at least four or five hours or pretty tedious and mind-numbing editing - by the time I finish a month I'm brain dead for the next few hours. Trying to add copyediting on top of that mindnumbing minutiae of scheduling would probably send me into a straightjacket. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:28, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Goodness. I don't think that anyone is trying to suggest that you don't do a sterling job, or that we are not all extremely grateful for your keeping TFA going. I simply wanted to make sure that I hadn't invented a pointless job for myself, or was repeating an activity which had already been done to a "good enough" standard. As there seems to be a feeling that I'm not I'll carry on until someone suggests otherwise. FWIW, of the 14 or so I have checked so far, about the worst fault was a rash of duplinking. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:45, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't mean to whine... that wasn't my intent. I'm always happy to have folks check over things.... just didn't want folks to think that I don't at least look things over slightly. I greatly appreciate anyone doing any copyediting of older FAs - don't let my slightly-distracted-with-the-whole-moving-thing-as-well-as-suffering-from-insane-pollen-levels rambles give the impression that I'm not glad for any help .. it's always appreciated. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:50, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
And in turn I didn't mean to criticise. As the man wrote "A 'critic' is a man who creates nothing and therefore feels qualified to judge the work of creative men."

Hi everyone, I've followed this thread on and off but hadn't time to comment till now, so apologies if I'm going over old ground. I think the early scheduling is a big help to allow the main contributors and other watchers -- the former notified on their talk page and the latter on the article talk page, as has always been the case -- to fix up links and attend to other issues that may have cropped up since their FACs. I always feel duty-bound to take care of "my" articles when they're scheduled for TFA, though as I watch them anyway it's generally going through the links in the older ones that takes time -- sometimes, as with the recent Joe Hewitt, I even work in useful data from sources not available when the article reached FA. So I guess, Gog, to not take too much out of your own articles budget you could be checking the older articles mainly, and their edit history to see if their main contributors have been maintaining them, and focus on the "orphans" -- just a thought. For the worst cases, I agree with Ealdgyth that it's what FAR is there for. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:55, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

And, just to put all my cards on the table ... those rare times when someone actually offers to copyedit upcoming TFA articles, I thank them and encourage them ... and then I stalk their edits. Gog hasn't been going overboard. - Dank (push to talk) 02:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Hi Ian Rose, thanks for the advice. I shall do my best to follow it. And thanks Dank, for keeping a watchful eye on my efforts. Don't hesitate to nudge me if you feel that it is necessary. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
It's not about perfect edits, it's more about being respectful of consensus and the work that other people have done. You're doing fine ... welcome aboard. - Dank (push to talk) 21:22, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Two blurbs

The May 8 and May 18 blurbs were copied from the blurbs posted at WP:TFAR. They're too long. So far this year, my relationship with the ERRORS folks has been a bit problematic compared to previous years (not an accusation, just an observation), and one way I've been dealing with this is to back away when someone else writes a blurb and no one asks me for help with it. So at this point, I'd rather not do anything with these two blurbs. If anyone wants to try condensing them, great, and if not, I'll hand them off at ERRORS at around the time they'll be hitting the Main Page. - Dank (push to talk) 11:59, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The issue isn't the ERRORS folks, it's one particular ERRORS folk, and he seems to have finally either got the message that his posturing isn't welcome, as he hasn't trolled the main page since March. ‑ Iridescent 13:14, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Sure, things have gotten better in recent months. WP:ERRORS is one of the few WP-space pages that isn't archived, so I got in the habit of keeping my own archive of TFA-related comments that led to blurb edits, but I gave up in December and January, because there were individual days where the ERRORS discussion was longer than my entire archive for the previous five months. Things have settled down now, and I don't have any hard feelings about it, but I'd like to keep on being more cautious in my approach to blurb writing. That's why I'm asking for help. - Dank (push to talk) 13:30, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
I have edited the blurb for 8 May down to 1,023 characters. I would appreciate it if someone could check it over. If it passes muster I will have a crack at 18 May. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:39, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Does the blurb for 23 May also need reducing?
My understanding is that a blurb should be 975-1,025 characters including spaces. Does this apply irrespective of whether there is an image? Gog the Mild (talk) 20:54, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
May 8 looks great. Apart from that one, we'll keep the imageless blurbs to a minimum ... don't worry about those for now. The initial blurbs are 925-1025 characters, although these numbers can be changed by consensus during blurb reviews. May 23: tempting, but no, I was waiting on feedback from one of the noms but never got it, I'll go do it now. - Dank (push to talk) 21:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
18 May down to 981 characters. Gog the Mild (talk) 09:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 13:03, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Blurb blurb blurb

@TFA coordinators The FACBot had a problem with the article blurb on 14 April 2019. It expects that the article of the day is the first link in the blurb. On this day it wasn't, leading to the FACBot reporting an error. I changed the blurb slightly and the Bot has now processed the April articles. (It runs a week into the next month to give time for the stats to appear.) If you have a better way of working out what the article of the day is from the blurb, let me know. Otherwise, keep the article of the day as the first link in the blurb. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:37, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Good to know. Someone else made the offending edit when it was on the Main Page. I thought it might be a problem, so I checked Template:TFA title/April 14, 2019, but it was still reporting the title correctly. Thanks for the correction. - Dank (push to talk) 02:50, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Hmm. That would be the better way to determine the article in question. I can have the FACBot read the templates. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:57, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Okay, that is done. This should give you m,ore flexibility with the blurb. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:46, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 04:42, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

WT:FAC#Blurb reviews and time off

Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 14:47, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Faryl Smith

How did this article get onto the Main Page in such a state? --MarchOrDie (talk) 09:27, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Crawford Expedition

FA blurb should say Crawford's affiliation was US Army, since its names Americans as the target and is unclear from the text. -ApexUnderground (talk) 22:33, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

This blurb will be on the Main Page in less than 24 hours. Pinging R8R, YBG. There have been a lot of edits to the blurb, and I'd like to see if everyone can agree on blurb text. (But I want to be clear that criticizing R8R and YBG is not an option here ... we can't be inviting people to take more of an interest in the blurbs and then slap them down when they do. When we're done with this blurb, we can talk about the wider implications.) - Dank (push to talk) 01:14, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Personally, I think the blurb is in great shape at the moment. I wouldn't want to put words into YBG's mouth but my assumption is that he is fine with it as well and in fact, it doesn't seem to me that the current version causes concern to anyone. There has indeed been some editing, both in the blurb and the article, but only new information was added (mostly a better summary of the already existing content); nothing was removed in the article and the blurb has only essentially been condensed which made room for more summary for information on the 20th century. Long story short, everything seems fine at the moment to me.--R8R (talk) 11:52, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm not critizing your work, but TFA doesn't work that way, can't work that way. There are some specific problems ... for instance, you start off with "aluminium" and then switch to "aluminum", and you say "exceeds those" when there's nothing plural that "those" could refer to. The bigger problem is, since changes were made to the blurb text without making similar changes to the article text, we have no way of knowing if the article editors are on board with your changes ... most people don't look at (or even think about) the blurb. Then we get to the really big problem ... actually this is my problem and not your problem: WP:ADMIN puts some heavy constraints on what I can do to fix things, since editing through protection is an admin thing. But I'm digressing ... let's solve the immediate problem first. Since most people can't edit it now, I'll reproduce it here ... anyone have edits or comments? - Dank (push to talk) 12:05, 6 June 2019 (UTC)


The history of aluminium in human usage goes back at least 2,500 years, when its compound alum was used for dyeing and city defense. During the Middle Ages, alum was traded in international commerce. In the Age of Enlightenment, the earth of alum, alumina, was shown to be an oxide of a new metal which was then discovered in the 1820s. Pure aluminium remained scarce until industrial production began in 1856; since the 1886 discovery of the Hall–Héroult process, production has grown exponentially. Engineering and construction applications began in the first half of the 20th century; aluminium was a vital strategic resource during both world wars. In 1954, it surpassed copper as the most produced non-ferrous metal. In the following decades, aluminium production spread throughout the world, and the metal became an exchange commodity and gained usage in transportation and packaging. Aluminium production in the 21st century exceeds that of all other non-ferrous metals combined.

I don't think anyone would object to standardizing aluminum > aluminium in the blurb. And just change "exceeds those" to "exceeds that". These are minor spelling/grammar fixes, not substantive changes to the meaning. Fish+Karate 13:33, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
I am very satisfied with the current text, but agree "aluminum">"aluminium" and "those">"that" should be done post-haste. I'd do it but it is protected. YBG (talk) 15:14, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Okay, I've made those two changes, here and in the blurb. - Dank (push to talk) 15:21, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Dank, I will read what you wrote more closely in two hours and start to address your concerns immediately. For now, I will assure you I am the main editor of the article so I do pay attention of what kind of content there is. All the content that has been added to the the blurb has been added to both the article's lead section as well as the body, where it is backed by sources. Please see for yourself and if there is a single claim in the blurb that hasn't been backed in the lead and the body, please say so without hesitation.

"Aluminum" instead of "aluminium" was a slip of the tongue (or, in this case, the typing finger). I wasn't sure with "that" vs. "those"; I'll rely on your collective judgment.--R8R (talk) 15:27, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm talking about language rather than claims (though sometimes the distinction isn't clear). The blurb mentions alumina; the lead doesn't. The lead says aluminium was used in aviation during the wars; the blurb doesn't. The blurb says "since the 1886 discovery of the Hall–Héroult process, production grew exponentially" ... "since" is typically used for present and perfect-tense clauses, not past tense, and this may create an ambiguity ... does it mean that it grew exponentially from 1886 until the next event you discuss, or does it mean it's grown exponentially up through the 21st century? (If you mean the first, then use "after" instead of "since".) None of these things are necessarily a problem, and it's not a bad blurb (which is why I chose this blurb to discuss ... there's nothing embarrassing here, but the process raises questions about how blurbs should be produced and what my role should be.) The position I'm being put in is problematic, because I co-wrote the original blurb, and admins aren't supposed to be using admin tools when they're INVOLVED. But I'll talk about that after we're done with this blurb. - Dank (push to talk) 16:01, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
"with the 1886 discovery of the Hall–Héroult process, production grew exponentially" Bazza (talk) 16:17, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Well, the bit on exponential growth was right to be worded the way it was worded; the growth remains exponential to this day. There's a graph of aluminum production since 1900 in the last section; see for yourselves, it does closely resemble an exponential function. Mentioning aviation could be great in the context of the world wars: "was a vital strategic resource for aviation during both world wars" or something like that. I mentioned alumina in the lead.--R8R (talk) 17:44, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
You've missed the point. "since the 1886 discovery of the Hall–Héroult process, production grew exponentially" is grammatically wrong. I interpret your previous explanation as stating that production has grown exponentially continuously since the process's discovery; in which case, you need "since the 1886 discovery of the Hall–Héroult process, production has grown exponentially". Bazza (talk) 18:52, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
You are absolutely correct. I actually thought that the present wording was introduced by somebody else and wanted to point out that the one with present perfect would be preferable. Bu as it turns out, I didn't pay enough attention when changing "with" to "since" and introduced that mistake myself. Sorry for the trouble; I wish I had invested some time in proofreading my own changes. Please make a change to the wording you just mentioned.--R8R (talk) 18:59, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
No problems: this is why WP has the processes it has, to allow other editors to contribute small improvements to the overall project. I can't make the change, but @Dank: or one of their admin colleagues may do. Bazza (talk) 19:05, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
I changed it to "has grown", above and in the blurb. Thanks, that's all I have on this one. - Dank (push to talk) 19:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
@Dank: sorry to bother you, but I just noticed non-ferrous metal is linked twice. Could you remove the second link?--R8R (talk) 19:57, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Happy to help, done. - Dank (push to talk) 20:05, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
@Dank: sorry to bother you again, one last request. This was actually mentioned in the discussion but somehow was missed in the end. Could we change "vital strategic resource" to "vital strategic resource for aviation" or "strategic resource vital for aviation"?--R8R (talk) 20:22, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Done. - Dank (push to talk) 20:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you very much!--R8R (talk) 20:55, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay, none of the things we talked about here was a problem today, so thanks for your help, everyone. In general, I don't want to be making edits to a protected page if I co-wrote the blurb, per INVOLVED. But it's not a black-and-white issue ... it's not 100% safe for me before the page is protected and not 100% unsafe after it's protected ... so maybe it will work for me to back off before the page is protected. This has become more of an issue lately because people have been taking more of an interest in blurbs ... which is great. There are at least four things we could do to get me out of this jam, and I don't have a preference:

  • I've let the other TFA coords know that I'd consider it a favor if they stepped in and dealt with late edits to the blurbs ... certainly I trust them to do it, but I understand if they don't want to get involved.
  • Maybe we could get some other poor schmuck enthusiastic volunteer(s) to keep an eye on blurbs and alert everyone on this page if something is going on that we need to be aware of.
  • There's no law that says that we have to handle these problems here ... Main Page folks are happy to step in, though they generally wait until page is protected (the day before the blurb hits the Main Page).
  • We could do nothing. That will lead to occasional problems ... but maybe it would be best to wait and see what problems we get before we try to solve the problems. - Dank (push to talk) 23:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Roles

I watchlisted this page quite some time ago. Probably in response to someone telling me that my concerns expressed on the talk page for the main page were in the wrong place... and then someone else telling me that my concerns expressed in supposedly the right place were in the wrong place because they were not errors, and then someone else telling me that.. well you get the idea...

So I am here and I read the discussions here and I now learn that instead of Talk:Main Page and Talk:Errors and other similar places, eventually I need to look at Wikipedia:Today's featured article and it tells me that there are TFA coordinators and also that page too also has a talk page, and in this case after however many rabbit holes, that page turns out to be this page.

With me so far? Good.

Having watchlisted this page, I see that a user called Dank does most of the work and occasionally turns up to tell people that he will be away or that he has concerns or that something or other.

Dank says things like "we can't be inviting people to take more of an interest in the blurbs and then slap them down when they do. When we're done with this blurb, we can talk about the wider implications". Seems like a sensible thing to me. But,

That doesn't make things much clearer to me, so I click in the latest archive of this talk page. There I find Dank saying "I've got some concerns about what's happening on that page; comments there would be very welcome" with regard to some other talk page that is now presumably moot.

The next item further down that talk page is also authored by Dank and says something like:

"These are the all the changes we've seen to blurbs in response to comments at WP:ERRORS over the last two weeks, not counting minor issues with images. (The edit on the 14th added a late change to the article, and the one on the 7th was my preference as well, although it was different from the article text.) Increasingly, the recent changes to the blurbs are being carried over to the articles. The number of suggestions in the TFA section of ERRORS that admins are not acting on is also way, way up (mainly the work of one editor), which doesn't seem to me to be having a good effect on how that page operates. Is this the way you guys want the ERRORS page to work, and if not, what do you want to do about it? I've been asking for help with this problem for a while, and I'm grateful for the responses, but nothing so far has been effective altered any general trends." (followed by some diffs I think)

(please see the original archive for the actual text, as some of that was struck or whatever).

Who are "you guys", in fact, who are any guys?

I have concerns that this type of communication may make sense to however many people are experts with TFA or whatever the process is called, but for me or anyone else who does not constantly monitor who is called what or calling which shots, it is complete nonsense. Sorry to be unduly negative (or just downright stupid), if that's what I'm being. MPS1992 (talk) 23:39, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I've been a TFA coord for 4.5 years now. For two months of those 4.5 years, last December and January, we had conflicts over TFA blurbs that hadn't occurred before and haven't recurred since. I dealt with the problem by trying a variety of experiments to try to get people from the FAC/GAN community to participate more in the process. The one experiment that has worked consistently (so I guess it's not an experiment any more) is that we're reviewing blurbs (which can be written by anyone) right after articles are promoted at FAC ... and since we started doing that, there's been a slight but noticeable uptick to edits to blurbs in general. Was any of that helpful? - Dank (push to talk) 23:50, 7 June 2019 (UTC) P.S. And yes, I probably yakkety-yak too much. There are three other TFA coords, and lots of competent people who keep an eye on FAC and TFA who can handle things just fine. - Dank (push to talk) 23:55, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Slightly, yes. In the four and a half years, how many other TFA co-ordinators have there been? And, before your tenure began, how were such things handled? MPS1992 (talk) 23:56, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
And, do you think you could look at marking statements with things like, "due to the complaints over TFA blurbs last month at WT:TFA" (or some wikilink that would serve the same purpose) or "I and the other TFA co-ordinators would like your input on..." and things like that? MPS1992 (talk) 23:59, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Sure, and let me know if anything I say is problematic. - Dank (push to talk) 00:38, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Fourth quarter 2018 blurbs

Okay, another set of blurbs for review, the last ones for a while; this time it's all the blurbs from articles promoted at FAC during the 4th quarter that haven't appeared at TFA yet. There are a bunch of reasons for doing these now, including: 1. Most of the FAs that show up at TFAR are baby FAs, less than a year old, and 2. having a greater variety of pre-vetted blurbs helps the coords meet various constraints when they're scheduling. I'll start posting these on their FAC nom talk pages, then I'll come back and list them here. - Dank (push to talk) 18:39, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

The ones marked with a J were collaborations with Johnboddie. - Dank (push to talk) 19:42, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
October
November
December

Gottlob Berger

Jim has started scheduling July (see WP:TFAA). As always, comments on the blurbs are welcome, especially for the blurbs that haven't already been vetted at TFAR and that were promoted at FAC before 2019 (i.e. before blurb reviews were being done at the time of promotion). If a blurb has a relevant TFAR or blurb review page, that will be mentioned in the edit history. One blurb that would be good for people to look at is Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 16, 2019, for a particularly noxious Nazi named Gottlob Berger. We're running it on his birthday ... is that a problem for anyone? (It's been a problem in the past when we ran, say, 9/11 hijackers on their birthdays.) The blurb text walks a tightrope ... if we don't include (for instance) that he was in charge of his involvement with the concentration camps in 1944 and 1945, we'll get complaints that we're trying to whitewash him. But there are other slimy things he did that I omitted because that can come across as inflammatory on the Main Page. Anyway, if anyone has thoughts on that, please share. - Dank (push to talk) 18:35, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman: perhaps you are aware of this already, but if not, the anniversary mentioned by Dank above is one on which you may have an opinion. So I ping you merely because concerns are better raised sooner rather than afterwards. MPS1992 (talk) 23:21, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
All things being equal, I don't think we should run with it at all; whether we like it or not, anything we put on the main page is going to be assumed to have our endorsement, implicit or otherwise. ——SerialNumber54129 09:03, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia endorsing "he was himself convicted of war crimes, including his involvement in slave labour schemes and as a conscious participant in the concentration camp program" a bad thing? I'd never heard of this person, but have now, and I think that proposing to remove the opportunity from other readers is a Bad Idea. The proposed blurb is well-written. My only slight niggle is that the FA is being shown on his birthday; another date might remove any suggestion of celebration. Bazza (talk) 09:57, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Our main page is some of the biggest advertising real estate on the internet. FYI. ——SerialNumber54129 12:18, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
What we did with others was run them on an arbitrary day, not their birthday which might look like celebrating. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:27, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
...and how, in fact, did it end up on his birthday in the first place; that's a 1/365 chance of being accidental  :) ...@Dank and Jimfbleak: ——SerialNumber54129 12:42, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
I only raised the birthday issue because I needed to talk about the blurb ... the other coords do the scheduling. To be fair to the coords, I can't really detect a pattern in what people have requested over the years ... we've run a lot of shady characters on their birthdays ... by request, often ... it's only sometimes that people get in an uproar about it. I thought this might be one of those over-the-top evil dudes that we have to handle differently. - Dank (push to talk) 13:15, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for ping. I see no good reason not to run this; as Dank says, we have articles on all sorts of bad guys. I understand your sensitivity about the date, but that's not unusual either. AFAIK only the much more recent 9/11 killers were unlinked from their DOBs. Let's see what Peacemaker67 thinks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:51, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Should I remove the birthday from the blurb, and just leave the birth and death years? - Dank (push to talk) 16:10, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I think years only are standard for blurbs regardless of controversy if I'm not mistaken. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:14, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Standard is to mention day and month in case of a significant relation to a specific day. Not to mention them might be a compromise in this particular case. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:23, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm indifferent towards the whole date thing. On one hand, not running it at all reeks of WP:RGW and we have run the 9/11 hijackers and even another Nazi like Kesselring before. I'm also not terribly averse to doing it on his birthday, which isn't entirely unprecedented if I understand Dank correctly, but nor am I against running it on another day if that's how consensus develops. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:14, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Be aware that July 16 is Holocaust Memorial Day in France (they have it on a different date than the 27 January it's commemorated in the rest of Europe, to mark the anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup). Obviously this is English not French Wikipedia, but be prepared to deal with complaints. ‑ Iridescent 16:37, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Oh that's just fucking great, that is. Are we deliberately going out of our way to piss off as many people in as short a space of time as possible? ——SerialNumber54129 17:27, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Yikes, a terrible idea to run it on Holocaust Memorial Day, even if that is only the case for a small proportion of readers. Maybe run it on January 5th? Or a random day instead. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
I would think running an article about a Nazi war criminal would be appropriate for Holocaust Memorial Day, assuming it's written appropriately and not as an endorsement. The blurb seems fine to me in that respect. I'm ambivalent on the birthday issue, though. —Nizolan (talk) 18:08, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
When I ran a 9/11 hijacker a while back, I purposefully chose a NON commemorative date, so I'd be inclined to run Berger on another date in July. But that's just me. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:00, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
If a date an anniversary was to be chosen, I would choose 6 January, the date his trial began. It is still neutral with a hint of the intent in NONAZIS. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 23:15, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
The birthday/celebrating Nazis issue is why I listed it as a potential to run on April 13 next year, the anniversary of the date he was convicted of war crimes, in order to reinforce that important aspect of his biography. Running it on any day associated with the Holocaust isn't a good idea, IMO. It could be run on any day unconnected with the Holocaust, but I think we should put it off to next year on April 13, unless there is a Holocaust angle on that date too that I'm not aware of. As for not running it at all, the blurb and article are neutrally written, don't celebrate or glorify Berger and clearly state he was a war criminal and what he was convicted of, so I fail to see what the problem is. Surely all topics, even reprehensible and ghastly ones, should be able to be run on the main page? Would we not run a TFA on Radovan Karadžić if he was a FA? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:07, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
I want to clarify. There is no doubt in my mind the article should be run some time. I was only saying that if we choose an anniversary, we should choose something around the trial. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 00:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
I want to add that, while the lead to article is very well written, the current blurb is bad. It buries his conviction for war crimes to the very bottom when it should be mentioned in the second sentence. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 00:49, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Okay, several people have said they liked it the way it is (though we haven't discussed specifics), so let's take another look at the blurb text in January. - Dank (push to talk) 13:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
OK, I think Peacemaker67's suggestion of 13 Jan makes sense. I'll pull it until then. I should be scheduling January, so if it's at TFARP that should remind me. Dank, I'll replace this soon Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
G'day Dan, where did you put the blurb now that July 16 has been replaced? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:24, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Unused blurbs always go into User:Dank/Sandbox/1, PM, unless they have some dedicated page (such as a TFAR or FAC talk page). Feel free to edit it there. - Dank (push to talk) 12:14, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Unwanted explicit images

I do not view TFAs often when they are on the main page. In my limited sample size, I have seen images of male genetalia twice. That seems pretty unacceptable for a website of our size and viewership. In the latest case, I linked the SOLRAD 1 article in my work chat channel and my CEO happened to click on it during one of these incidents. Not cool.

We protect the images on Commons when they are being featured on the main page. I am fine with leaving the articles unprotected during TFA (I would prefer confirmed protection but eh), but anyone can still add or change images on the page. Really, the protection is for Commons and not for us.

I heard there was a proposal at some point to have a bot detect image changes (new images and switched images), and revert them while the page is at TFA. Is anyone familiar with that? I presume our software would not allow us to block image changes in other ways (some kind of edit filter or something?), so I do not have any other suggestions.

Does anyone have any other suggestions at preventing this, or know more about the bot plan? Kees08 (Talk) 16:57, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I am completely nontechnical but would it be possible to put the TFA image in another template and protect that?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:51, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
I don't think that alone would help, because it's an image added on top of the article, - not in the TFA blurb. I reverted it several times, and vigilance of many should help. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:22, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Pinging David Levy. - Dank (push to talk) 12:25, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Maybe this is not as pervasive as a problem as I thought it was, given the little discussion thus far. Did I just get really unlucky, or does this happen with any amount of frequency? Kees08 (Talk) 04:53, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we could have the bot flag edits that add an image that isn't connected to the article's Commons category or Wikidata entry. SounderBruce 00:40, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
I think that protecting TFAs from vandalism in general, including images on the page, is a good idea. I think that confirmed or extended confirmed protection would be a good place to start, perhaps both on here and on Commons with the cooperation of the Commons community. If that proves insufficient then full protection is an option. --Pine (✉) 23:18, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
If Commons images are featured on the main page, they can only be edited by Admins at Commons (including things like the description and date taken). The issue is only new images added. I like SounderBruce's idea; while there are images that could be added that are not in that category that would still be useful, the odds are probably that images not in the subject category are vandalism (perhaps we could analyze this if needed). Kees08 (Talk) 17:35, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Apollo 11

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
See also RfC to IAR for DYK

This RfC is to determine what to do on the Main Page during the week of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Here are some possible options:

Options 1, 2 and 3 require a some application of WP:IAR. Note that there has been a previous RfC about DYK. A notice has been posted at the Village Pump, WT:DYK, WT:POTD, and WT:OTD to garner wider input.--- Coffeeandcrumbs 03:33, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

!votes

  • Option 3. Best of both worlds (no pun intended). —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 15:03, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 4. 1. There are lots of momentous points in history, and all have anniversaries: we don’t mark other major points by exhausting our readers’ patience in repeating a topic over the course of a week (if we go for a week of the same type of articles, the big complaints will start on day 3, and they’ll be carnage by the time day 5 arrives. 2. A fiftieth is a notable anniversary, but it’s not a centennial or millennial-type anniversary. IAR should be used sparingly, not thrown around to get a ‘pet’ subject on the MP for a whole week. - SchroCat (talk) 16:39, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    • @SchroCat: This is only the first. I have other special projects in the works for more anniversaries like this with world changing consequences. 75th anniversary of V-E Day is the next up. Can you support Option 5a? Just trying to build consensus.--- Coffeeandcrumbs 00:59, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
      • I'm sticking with 4. Bringing in themed MPs is too much for me, and you have to think about where it ends. Less is more, and you lose the impact of an article or section by saturating the whole page with too much sameness.
This and the one other example you have given smack of RECENTISM (yes, I know they are 50-year anniversaries, but that's still very recent in historical terms). It will lead to the kind of circular arguments seen on ITN: why VJ Day and not VE Day? Why the landing on the moon and not the founding of the new world or settling in Australia, (both of which are arguably more significant than the moon landings)? People will start comparing and grading historical events for a MP theme day, and I can't imagine a bigger waste of time and effort than that.
A consensus will come, even if I don't change my vote, but people will tire of a MP themes fairly soon, and it'll lead to complaints about why certain events have not been covered. - SchroCat (talk) 05:18, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
I get your point. VJ Day is also in the works. If we knew the exact date of the discovery of the new world or settling in Australia, I would do projects on them. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 05:35, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
That's fine - and I'll Oppose projects on those too. I'll probably be on the losing side of them all, but I am a firm believer in 'less is more' so the impact of an article or section is not lost in the noise. (And one of my points was why VJ Day and not (or also) VE Day)? RECENTISM is also too glaring here as well. - SchroCat (talk) 05:42, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

  • Option 2: I'm a fan of the visual juxtaposition of all three astronauts on the Main Page, as seen here. Option 3 also seems like a good alternative, but running so many Apollo 11 FAs might become tiresome, as SchroCat pointed out, although I wouldn't be personally against it if consensus says so. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 23:55, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 6. RFC was mentioned on WP:Discord. First of all, I really, really like the idea behind this RFC. I would never have thought to do something this cool! My proposal is to make this a two-day affair with July 20 looking something like this and going with either Options 3 or 5. The key parts I have so far include the Moon being the TFA and a general space/exploration-related OTD. I don't want it getting lost that this is an accomplishment for humanity, so I worked really hard to find a diverse selection of content. I'm against Option 4 and support either Option 3 or 5. (edit conflict) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 00:19, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 3as first choice, but not particularly fussy about the details. Generally support the idea of showing them all during the week. Generally support the idea of celebrating major anniversaries of major events of worldwide interest and importance. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:23, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • (Summoned by bot) Option 3 as a compromise between 1 and 2, which I thought were the best. SemiHypercube 19:09, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 2 or Option 3. We put a lot of effort in to make the theme on July 21st, so it would be nice to see that come to fruition. Kees08 (Talk) 23:12, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 4 And choose a random subject for the TFA via normal means Abote2 (talk) 10:11, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 4. As has been correctly pointed out above, there are lots of significant events in history. I have no issue if you want to nominate a multi-article TFA to run on one day, along the lines of pilots shot down on 7 September 1940, triangular constellations or the 2008 US election, but allowing a single topic to hijack the main page for a week is a poor precedent to set, and the proposal to do the same for other topics such as VJ-day is an atrocious precedent to set. One of the great strengths of the existing TFA setup is that its scheduling neutrally reflects the distribution of our pool of Featured Articles; this proposal would essentially be saying to the world "topics of importance to the recent history of the United States are more important than other topics", which is a dreadful message to be sending. Yes, we dropped the ball once on the day we allowed the Trekkies to hijack the main page, but that we made an error once doesn't mean we should continue making it. (Incidentally, those talking about Use the Obama/McCain model, randomizing which FA appears appear to have misunderstood what the Obama/McCain model is. It isn't about randomising which FA appears, it's a mechanism for randomising the order in which the multiple FAs are listed in the blurb when the blurb is for multiple items.) ‑ Iridescent 16:11, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
    For what it is worth, I specifically have worked on/am working (hoping to finish in time) on four Soviet and one French DYK article to try to balance the page. Kees08 (Talk) 19:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 4 or possibly a single related TFA (based on date relevance) - a weeklong or main-page-wide extravaganza is way excessive. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:27, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 2 or 1 - Leaves it at only one day, and shows a spread of articles. Backup preference would be 5a (if technically possible). The moon landing is an event important to the world, not just the United States. --Spacepine (talk) 16:50, 10 June 2019 (UTC) edited 13:12, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 1 sounds good. It would be nice if Mae Jemison could appear as a pictured DYK, particularly if there are going to be multiple photos of astronauts on the page at once. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:41, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 4 seems fair and reasonable. ——SerialNumber54129 15:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 1, let's show them off. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 17:20, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - They are all fantastic articles which users will surely want to read, especially with the spike in interest that the anniversary will cause. I don't buy the "slippery slope" argument that says doing something special for an anniversary will lead to all sorts of irrelevant anniversaries being celebrated in this manner. Mainly because Wikipedia is really good at stopping these sort of slopes from happening. Hell, there are people who already oppose it from the first attempt. In conclusions, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight is important enough and the four articles are good enough for this option to make sense. This should be judged on a case by case basis in the future and everything will be fine. PraiseVivec (talk) 12:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I prefer option 4 here. Otherwise, what will we run next year? :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Izno (talk • contribs) 14:12, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 1 per PraiseVivec, who has said it better than I could have. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:36, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 4, for all the reasons laid out by Iridescent and SchroCat. If Option 4 is chosen, Apollo 11 is probably the best article to run, as it's the overarching topic and doesn't have any date connection except the anniversaries of the mission in late July, whereas Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins obviously have birthdays. A. Parrot (talk) 17:55, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 5a I like the idea of recognizing important worldwide anniversaries (50, 100, 200 etc.) in this project. If 5a is not technally possible, my second preference is Option 4 with Apollo 11 as the best article to run. --Enos733 (talk) 17:03, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - I'd prefer to have 3 FAs on one page but that can't be done (and I don't like the layout of #2) so for me the next best option is #1 - I would certainly support 4 FAs in a row. –Davey2010Talk 11:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 4 - I agree with Iridescent; Great achievement getting them to FA, but we need to acknowledge the event in a way that works within the existing policy and guidelines, which are there for good reason. Promethean (talk) 13:21, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
  • I like the idea of this. I think that Option 5a is a good compromise. --Pine (✉) 23:20, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Regarding option 2, if only one article was to be run as a TFA (or be used as the centre of a themed page), Apollo 11 seems the logical choice given that the mission involved huge numbers of people, not just Aldrin. Nick-D (talk) 04:13, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    Apollo 11 is already scheduled at POTD for July 21, so I think one of the astronauts might be a better choice. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 04:38, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    That was only because we scheduled Armstrong for TFA; we can use a different image for POTD if needed. Kees08 (Talk) 20:21, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    I am especially attached to the photo chosen for POTD. It is quite iconic and memorable. Could we not just choose a different article with the same photo? Extravehicular activity, for example, comes to mind. Sorry Ravenpuff. I know we have worked hard on the POTD blurb but that is sunk cost and some of it can be repurposed.--- Coffeeandcrumbs 21:12, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    I'd be fine with that if consensus dictates, although I'm still in favour of keeping the POTD blurb as-is, per my !vote for Option 2 above. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 00:00, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, I wouldn't have an objection to all four TFA's running more-or-less together, as it was a great achievement in Wiki terms to get all of them to FA in time for the anniversary, but agree with Nick that if we just stick to one in the actual period of the mission then Apollo 11 is the logical one. That said, there is precedent for multiple articles sharing the TFA slot on the one day, either all at one time or (from memory) on a revolving basis. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:24, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
  • For POTD, several pictures with module Random could be used. —⁠andrybak (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    I knew there must have been an idea I did not think of. Randomizing seems like a good compromise if we can get everyone to agree on it. These articles are going to get huge amount of attention no matter what we do. Can any one speak to the technical feasibility in the current Main Page? 2008 was a long time ago. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 21:12, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    My only issue with option 5 is that the articles would not get 24 hours on the main page (I know technically they do, but I don't expect most users to keep refreshing the main page). Kees08 (Talk) 22:58, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    @TFA coordinators Ping coordinators. What if we did it for 48 hours on July 20 and July 21. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 23:08, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    The issue with that which Option 5 tries to solve is that July 21 is the "prize" and any article not featured on that date would be comparatively shafted. The landing was on July 20, so it's not that bad, but that also requires an invocation of WP:IAR to have similar topics twice in a row. Perhaps we can have Modified Option 5: 11 and Collins get Obama/McCain'd for July 20, and Aldrin and Armstrong get Obama/McCain'd for July 21. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:21, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    We are talking about the same idea, almost. My idea is that all 4 are randomized and appear for 48 hours on July 20 and July 21. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 23:28, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
    I'm fine with that as well if consensus goes that way. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:41, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I've come all in with a new contender in Option 6. I think the Moon itself should be the TFA for 20 July 2019. Folk here might want to consider that as an option. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 00:23, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment There is currently no outstanding TFA request for July 20, so there's nothing to block Option 5a. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 01:04, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • @Kees08 and Hawkeye7: It would be helpful to know your opinion on this matter. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 10:58, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
    I don't like the sharing concept at all. A lot of work went into all four articles, and each deserves to have its own run. (Barak Obama had already been run.) The original concept was to run them all in the same week. Recommend running Apollo 11 on 21 July, per Nick-D, as it is by far the most appropriate article. We can save Aldrin and Collins for another day. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:58, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
    I agree with Hawkeye, have multiple on the same day is my least favorite option. I am indifferent on if we run 3/4 of the articles during the 50th anniversary of the mission (I think it would be neat, but it is not my encyclopedia). Voted above accordingly. Kees08 (Talk) 23:12, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
    Having multiple articles will reduce the impact of TFA. It can be expected that articles Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Apollo 11 will get attention on the anniversary regardless of presense on the main page. How about option 6: have Michael Collins (astronaut) as TFA, and relegate other articles to OTD and DYK blurbs. This, of course, violates WP:POLA to some extent, and might seem like some kind of reverse-psychology-logic-flip a bit too far, but a) WP:IAR has already been invoked here and b) I would like to hear what people think about such an idea. —⁠andrybak (talk) 09:57, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • The discussion on this has died down; might be good to try to close it so the TFA coords can get their planning done early. Kees08 (Talk) 17:03, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Discussion has died down and the TFA schedulers would probably prefer if this was resolved, so it might be a good time to officially close this. Kees08 (Talk) 06:35, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

  • @Coffeeandcrumbs: Do you have an idea on how you want to close this? Probably time to get this settled. Kees08 (Talk) 07:17, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
    • I have requested closure. Other than that I have no idea. If the community decides to come to no consensus, WP:IAR is still a policy on en.wiki, and each WikiProject that determines the outcome of an individual section of the Main Page is still permitted act independently, I have no motivation to force the issue. What will be will be. It is up to the @TFA coordinators to decide what will happen at this project. Our time is better spent elsewhere. Perhaps it would have been better if I asked people to rank their favorite option like so: 2/3/5a/1/5/4. But I don't have a time machine. If you are motivated to do so, you can ping all the people that voted already and ask them to rank their favorite options in order. I am dejected. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 07:50, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
      • Jim is in charge of scheduling July. CaC, I'm not following why you're dejected; this was set up as an RfC, outside closers generally don't get involved until 30 days at the earliest, and it's been 25 days. We had a vigorous discussion. So ... everything seems on track, to me. Is there something you want Jim to do sooner than that? - Dank (push to talk) 12:04, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
        Dejected was too strong a word. Sorry, I was in a particularly depressed mood. I am discouraged by the outcome not being more clear so we can plan around it and also avoid arguments on the day in question. I would hate a no consesus but I will wait and see how it closes. The result of this RfC also has effects that reverberate across the Main Page, especially at POTD. It would be nice to be sure which page will be at TFA on July 21. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 15:56, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
        All good points. - Dank (push to talk) 16:08, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
        FWIW, I would be fine with (and would almost prefer) if Dank or JimofBleak closed the RfC. Better to have someone familiar with the main page I think. Coffeeandcrumbs do you have a preference? Dank/JimofBleak, would you feel comfortable? Kees08 (Talk) 16:54, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
        Definitely prefer if the coordinators closed it per curiam. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 16:57, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
        Thanks for your confidence, I appreciate it. I'll support whatever the other coords want to do. - Dank (push to talk) 17:26, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
        @Jimfbleak: Looks like I might have messed up my ping; would you be interested in closing the discussion? Kees08 (Talk) 18:17, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

WP:ERRORS#Tomorrow's TFA

A pointer to my non-pointy question about the removal of the image. - Dank (push to talk) 22:17, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

To your point about including images in the blurb review, that may be a good plan. POTD shows how it will look in the template; maybe that is a good way to do it, show how the TFA look with the image next to it? Kees08 (Talk) 00:17, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
No objection ... I'll do whatever people want. - Dank (push to talk) 00:19, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
Permalink to the discussion at WP:ERRORS. - Dank (push to talk) 11:35, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

As of July 1, blurb reviews are including images. One of the coords will select an image, but people are of course free to pick other images. All of the July TFA images strike me as completely uncontroversial, except possibly for these three:

I've no idea if it still exists or was revoked somewhere along the way, but we certainly used to have a written "no maps as the image" policy. I have no idea why (other than that they're generally hard to make out at 150px width). ‑ Iridescent 21:24, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
We didn't have maps for many years, but we've used maps to indicate fossil finds for several years now (and for some military history, I think). - Dank (push to talk) 21:36, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

August images

Ealdgyth will be scheduling August, starting tomorrow. To make sure people get enough lead time to vet images, I'll post the first 3 now: File:Mark Arm.jpg from Touch Me I'm Sick, File:Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō Front.jpg from Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō, and File:David Duchovny 2011 Shankbone.JPG from The Truth (The X-Files). @Gen. Quon, Sturmvogel 66, and Indopug: do these work for you? - Dank (push to talk) 00:53, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Good to go.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:47, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
Sounds great!—indopug (talk) 06:19, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. I think the pic for "The Truth" is set.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 20:41, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Anyone have thoughts on these?

The subject is acceptable blurb length. Discussion is welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 04:24, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

The discussion may move to Talk:Main Page. - Dank (push to talk) 04:56, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

September images

India

India completes 15 years as an FA on September 16. I don't know if this in of itself (i.e. notability for the FA, not for the country) constitutes a rationale for the front page, and I haven't rummaged all records for previous appearances—the talk page says it did once in December 2004—but either way, please post your thoughts. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:43, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Is it up to today's standards?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:11, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
I'd say it needs a few weeks' work, mainly in the later sections. Today's standards as in which country FA (for comparison)? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:30, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Alternatively, it could be improved first, and this question taken up again, if it is not too late, a month from now. Please do give me some other country FAs for comparison. Fowler&fowler«Talk»
@Fowler&fowler: they're listed here, e.g., Canada. Hope that helps, ——SerialNumber54129 17:03, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
I know that, but Canada has the same problems with list-iness and pompous prose that we're trying to root out in India. See Canada#Literature, for example. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:16, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
I meant: are there some topics that are now considered essential in a country FA that weren't earlier. Are "science and technology," or "urban life" now considered essential? There hasn't been much much appetite for these on India, in part because of the country's much larger rural sector, and its other more pressing topics? On the other hand, people keep asking about environment and human rights sections in India ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:45, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

On second thoughts, as I seem to be asking questions to which there aren't likely to be firm answers, why don't I come back in a months time? Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:05, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm probably going to schedule around August 18 to 20 for September. I would ask about whether it was up to date for any article that was passed in 2004, which is quite early in FA history. If it's in good shape, I'd like to run it though we might have to discuss what date.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:31, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
OK. It did go through an FAR in 2011. Will come back around August 18 and will scour the other FAs with a gimlet eye. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:35, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
It would be better to report back, say, not later than August 15. Just report back here. Probably the regulars will look at the India article and comment. It's that feedback that I'm looking for.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
OK Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:11, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
@Wehwalt: It is two days before August 15. But I have a different idea which I will explain later below. First, what has been done since I last posted here? This is the state of the India page now. I have revised Biodiversity, and rewritten the lead. The lead is much longer, but about the same size as Germany. The lead does not mention details that appear in the infobox (such as membership of this organization and that). ... It has been mostly me tinkering with the article. I will be revising Geography next, then Demography, followed by the Culture and Society stuff. I'm not too knowledgeable about politics, government, economy, and industries. But India is a highly-trafficked page, so it gets routinely updated.
Now my new idea: October 2 is Gandhi's 150th birthday. The Mahatma Gandhi page is not an FA. How about running India on that day, if the date is available, and if the regulars are on board. Presumably you will be scheduling October a little later, which will give some more time. Also, for Gandhi's birthday, I might be able to get others to help out with the sprucing up. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:05, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. I've fixed the spices. As for the girls playing hopscotch, they are fair representatives of a section titled "Sports and recreation." They belong to rural India, where 70% of India's population resides. The citation in the caption says, "Hopscotch is traditionally played by girls in rural India." About the miner, please read the caption. You'll have to tell me more precisely why the picture is inappropriate. I should add the pictures were selected after a long drawn selection process on Talk:India in 2012 and 2013, lasting many months. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:22, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
I have no objection personally but I do not schedule October, that is @Jimfbleak:. I would suggest simply nominating it at TFA/R once I have scheduled at least part of September (likely middle of next week) and the date is available.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:48, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Wehwalt, thanks. I agree, nominate at TFAR once it's in the date range, and if it looks up to scratch I'll run it on 2 October as long as there's no date clash Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:36, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Wehwalt,Jimfbleak Thanks. Will nominate at TFA middle of next week, Wednesday, August 21. If there is someone expressing interest in that date before that, please let me know. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:29, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
That sounds good. My plan is to get a tentative list for September out for review to fellow coordinators Saturday and schedule not later than Wednesday. I might start nibbling at the task before Wednesday.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:07, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: @Wehwalt: I've made a nomination at Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests/India, but can't see it anywhere. The details are not all filled in, in part because I did not realize such details were required and in remaining part because I hadn't clearly understood the instructions. Anyway I'll keep chipping away. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:39, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I see it was added to WP:TFAP but not WP:TFAR ... which will work fine as long as there's no competition for the date (there isn't) and nothing else to conflict with it (there's not), such as too many articles already in the same category. Or, you can go ahead and transclude the nomination page to WP:TFAR. Let me know if you want help with a blurb. - Dank (push to talk) 23:56, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
I did transclude it for them but obviously if they prefer not to, they can revert me.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:20, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler as long as I can see it at TFAR or TFARP, that's fine. I had a look at the sections that would have most needed updating, and they look OK. Do you want to do the blurb {1000 characters)? Either way, let us know asap. I'll start scheduling in about three weeks time, so no rush Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:24, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Dank, Wehwalt}, Jimfbleak, for your prompt, and helpful, replies. Yes, I'll take a stab at the blurb. But, if by next Wednesday, August 28 that is, you find what I have to be not professional enough, please do help me. If you want me to finish it sooner, please let me know. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
No rush. - Dank (push to talk) 18:10, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin is at FAC at the moment, with three supports and a complete source review. If it passes in time, I would love to have it run at TFA on 21st October, which would have been her 90th birthday (she died last January). Is it too early to ask whether that spot is still open? I know I can't nominate it yet, but I'd greatly appreciate it if you folks could keep it in mind. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:56, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

@TFA coordinators Vanamonde (Talk) 03:52, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Scheduling is above my pay grade, and it's Jim's call in October, but it wouldn't hurt to cover the ground rules. WP:TFAR and WP:TFAP are the pages to check ... they're not showing anything for October 21, and you also don't have competition from any other articles on authors or books. I still think about Le Guin's books, even decades after reading them. - Dank (push to talk) 04:29, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
There's nothing on my TFA planner for that date, so unless there's a nom for a centenary for Oct 21, it's likely to run Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:45, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, both. I will try to shepherd it through FAC as fast as I can. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:14, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Pipe-out parenthetical disambiguators

Everywhere else on the Main Page, we pipe-out disambiguators such as "(van Eyck)". We do this consistently even in the first sentence of the TFA blurb. Why do we not do that on the recentlist? --- Coffeeandcrumbs 21:05, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Here's a permalink to the discussion at ERRORS. This is probably an issue where I would at least list pros and cons, normally, but it seems like there's some new issue coming up every day, mostly on talk pages of the blurbs, so I'm going to have to prioritize. I don't care a lot about this issue. - Dank (push to talk) 21:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Question. The Sutton Hoo Helmet (sculpture) article isn't the Sutton Hoo Helmet article, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) isn't Arthur, and very few British nationals are BNOs (for British National (Overseas)), to pick a few recent ones. How do you want to deal with this issue? Who's going to decide which parentheses to keep, if any? - Dank (push to talk) 17:58, 9 October 2019 (UTC) Let's start here: can we agree that, if we do start dropping some parentheses, we would never do it unless the page title without parens is clearly labeled as a disambiguation page? - Dank (push to talk) 20:51, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Coffeeandcrumbs, I have no problem with the general idea of bringing TFA in line with Main Page practices whenever we can do that, but it's also important to weigh the upside against the downsides. This is the first time in the last 5 years that people have objected to using article names in the recentlist. I'm generally against giving people extra things to argue about unless there's some payoff; also, without the parentheses, it's possible readers would wind up at the wrong article, if they type what they're seeing into the search bar instead of clicking on the link. Having said that, I'm still open to changing the practice if there's clear support for changing it. - Dank (push to talk) 15:19, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
I think the article title should appear in full. If there are exceptions, they can be discussed on a case-by-case basis. After all, the recentlists are generated soon after the scheduling is implemented, so generally 10 to 40 days in advance, so plenty of time to.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:25, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Recently I seem to be disagreeing with Dank and Wewalt a lot, so I want to take advantage of the opportunity to agree with them when I can. I agree that, as a list of articles, it's better to use the article's full name (dab included) in the "Recently featured" list (I know it's not decided here, but I'd favor the same thing in the TFP list - not sure what our practice is there). I see these lists as fundamentally different from other links on the main page; a list of articles, rather than a list of topics (e.g. the "Ongoing" section of ITN). I could be talked out of this, but there'd have to some benefit that I haven't thought of. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:34, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

While we're talking about stuff at the end of the blurb ... "one of Wikipedia's featured topics" (when we have a featured topic) has always been (arguably) a violation of WP:SELF, and anyway, it sounds weird. We've got one featured topic coming up in November, on the 5th (guess which one!). Could we go with something shorter, like "Part of the Gunpowder Plot featured topic."? Or better yet, we could lose the extraneous blank line with (Guy Fawkes, part of the Gunpowder Plot featured topic.) - Dank (push to talk) 03:42, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

The {{TFATOPIC}} wording seems a little too terse to me at the moment. My preference would be something along the lines of "This article is part of the Gunpowder Plot featured topic.", which is a complete sentence and should hopefully avoid the WP:SELF issue. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 04:38, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm fine with that, with a tweak: (Guy Fawkes is part of the Gunpowder Plot featured topic.) Two birds, one stone, avoids "this article", and avoids the need for (Full article...). - Dank (push to talk) 11:46, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
But what would you do if the article had a dab? "Guy Fawkes (English dude) is part of the Gunpowder Plot featured topic" would look odd. I suppose a disambiguated article that's part of a featured topic is uncommon enough that we shouldn't make a decision based on that.... --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:40, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
You make the distinction above between the article name and the subject of the article ... since we're referring to the article here, I guess we'd include the disambiguation? - Dank (push to talk) 21:03, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I think we would, but it looks odd to me, so I was wondering whether we should stick to the "Full article"/"This article" phrasing. Still, there's no need to avoid an improvement 95% of the time to prevent a minor problem the other 5%. I'm OK with any of the suggested changes here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Floq and Ravenpuff: thanks, what you're saying suddenly hit me when I was looking at WT:Featured article candidates/Goldfinger (novel)/archive1. It wouldn't sound right, and wouldn't be consistent with Main Page practice, to say "Goldfinger (novel) is part of ...". Ravenpuff's suggestion works for me as long as we link it: "(This article is part of ...)" in place of "(Full article...)". Does that work for everyone? - Dank (push to talk) 23:03, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Personally, I feel that we should still include both {{TFAFULL}} and {{TFATOPIC}} on such pages – writing "Full article..." gives readers a clearer link to read the FA in question, whereas linking "This article" might be more ambiguous. That said, I don't disagree in principle with Dank's proposal above. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 04:10, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Booyah! Coded it on the first try. See Template:TFAFULL2, which acts just like TFAFULL with 1 parameter, but produces, for instance, "{{TFAFULL2|Guy Fawkes|Gunpowder Plot}}" with 2 parameters. I left a message with Article Alerts (per instructions) to see if tweaking Template:TFAFULL will break anything. - Dank (push to talk) 02:36, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty of italicising the brackets/parentheses, in accordance with convention on similar usages on the Main Page, e.g. when writing "(pictured)". Also, should we take into consideration FAs that might be part of multiple featured topics, as {{TFATOPIC}} did? — RAVENPVFF · talk · 16:05, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Italics are fine. We haven't had a double-featured-topic at TFA in years, and if we do, it seems unnecessary to me to link the nested topic ... if people click on the larger topic, they'll see the nested one on that page. (Non-nested double-FTs are even more rare.) - Dank (push to talk) 16:08, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Blurb talk pages

There's been more activity on the talk pages of blurbs lately (such as WT:Today's featured article/October 31, 2019). My sense of the October blurbs was that, on balance, things were working roughly the way they're supposed to. For the November blurbs ... it's a close call, and certainly Kevin has raised a lot of good points, but it seems to me that there's an unfortunate (but predictable) downside to all the discussion ... when the people who wrote the articles and who have the sources are thinking of speaking up, or when they're pinged, the more discussion they have to wade through to understand the questions, the less likely they are to say anything. I'm not the authority on how Wikipedia is supposed to work and I'm not blaming Kevin or any of the admins acting at ERRORS, but I think I'm going to stop interacting on blurb talk pages. (which Not interacting on those pages, btw, was how things were done for many years at TFA, both before and after I arrived). I have no objection at all to any discussion anyone else wants to have on blurb talk pages. There are, of course, many other places people can and do talk about blurbs ... blurb reviews (on the talk pages of the FAC nominations), WP:TFAR, WP:ERRORS and its talk page, WT:FAC, here, article talk pages, user talk pages, etc. - Dank (push to talk) 14:21, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your willingness to engage recently at those talk pages. Of course you have the right to involve yourself in as much or as little of Wikipedia as you choose to.
But those blurb talk pages, quickly accessible from TFAA, are convenient and gathered together, and so for anyone (and I would hope not to be the only one) interested in previewing TFA extracts this seems the obvious place to address them. Indeed, it is where I was sent to precisely for that purpose. It is not necessarily helpful to have so many different places where they can be discussed. Is there something we can do to clearly signpost one central point for each blurb?
I was attacked for raising matters on ERRORS on the day (even though it was the first time I had looked at anything to do with the MP for many months), now the opportunity for discussing them in advance is being fundamentally weakened. Kevin McE (talk) 16:50, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the 25 November scheduled article...

@TFA coordinators ——SN54129 15:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
I do have two objections to running 1257 Samalas eruption at TFA at this time. One, as the article author I'd have the de facto obligation to maintain it on and before (there are a couple of sources to be added) TFA day and I have neither the time (university exam preparation and other Wikipedia committments) nor the inclination (prior TFAs on less "Interesting" topics still became vandalism magnets) to do either just then. Two, this is the kind of topic where waiting for further research to identify an eruption date is probably more fruitful that running it at a random date.
There was a prior nomination and subsequent withdrawal on that article and some discussion on my talk page which petered out without a definitive conclusion. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:55, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
I wish I could help; I'm not involved in scheduling (except in emergencies). - Dank (push to talk) 15:10, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
I've seen it and I plan to reschedule, just have been swamped with other stuff. It'll get changed. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:53, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
I would hate to see this a permanent restriction. After all, we don't know if the eruption will ever be dated to an exact day and unless an inscription of some sort is found, I don't see how it could be.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:14, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

gaming disorder is video game addiction rather than internet addiction disorder

@TFA coordinators there is an error in the blurb for digital media use and mental health. I updated it here. is this correct because it didn't show up on the day after tomorrow TFA. Thanks --[E.3][chat2][me] 13:03, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. (We have to bypass redirects on the Main Page, but not necessarily in the articles.) - Dank (push to talk) 13:30, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposed new FAC coordinator

Hi, pls see here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Relevant proposal at Template:Article history

@TFA coordinators I have proposed a modification to {{Article History}} that directly relates to TFA. The discussion may be found here. Any input there would be appreciated. Ergo Sum 05:49, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

WT:ERRORS#Recusals for December

Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 20:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

No animals for December?

I was a bit disappointed to see there were no animals scheduled for December, there is usually one or two (and it is now very biography-heavy). Not that I'm demanding anything should be done about it, just saying! The Red-tailed tropicbird has some nice, christmasy colours, for example, and it breeds on Christmas Island... FunkMonk (talk) 06:53, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

If not Christmas, any one in particular you'd like? I can fairly easily pull December 29, which is Ezra Meeker, for which I was the nominator and it's a rerun. It would be nice if there was a blurb drafted already.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:39, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
Ah, wouldn't have to be for Christmas day itself, just December, but thanks! A blurb would be fairly easy to do since the intro is so short, I can take a stab, but I'll ping the nominators Casliber and RileyBugz to see what they think. FunkMonk (talk) 14:16, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
Ping me to the blurb when it's ready and I'll make the switch.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:20, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
My blurb proposal can be found here[13], I'll ping you when everyone approves it. FunkMonk (talk) 14:45, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Workshopping a proposal for a new user group

Valereee and I have been working on a proposal to form a new usergroup whose members would be able to edit content on the main page or its fully protected subsidiaries. Since it directly affects this project, and is based in part on the shortage of administrators working here, we would like to invite feedback on the proposal at User talk:Vanamonde93/Main page editor‎. The proposal itself is at User:Vanamonde93/Main page editor‎. In particular, we would like to hear it if you are opposed to the whole thing on principle, because in that case we would rather spend our time promoting queues than in organizing a large-scale RfC. Best, Vanamonde (Talk) 06:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

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