Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:51, 13 December 2006

See also: Misplaced Pages:Featured articles with citation problems

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pre-12/2003 and renaming poll Origins dispute up to January 1, 2005 up to January 1, 2006 up to May 1, 2006 up to Aug 7, 2006

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Sport and Games section

It looks like a mess now with the two jumbled together, I think a split to Sport and Computer and Videogames would be best--Atirage 14:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree it is a mess and they need to be split--Serge222 15:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki

Please add ka:ვიკიპედია:რჩეული სტატიები to the iw list. - user:Alsandro 02:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Spangineer (háblame) 03:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

GA question

I cannot find the answer to this question- If I nominate a GA for FA status and its nomination fails does the article keep its GA status? Regards, Signature 00:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe it does. Raul654 00:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, although the issues on the FAC may be used to delist the article from WP:GA if sufficiently severe. Titoxd 00:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank for your response, I apreciate it. Regards, Signature 05:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Referencing

On one movie article I'm editing, I have several reliable references to the web and DVD. There are also book references, but they were added by someone else. I know that specific phrases in the article can be referenced with the books, but past editors did not have the hindsight to use inline citations. I don't own the books and I'm not going to buy them solely for Misplaced Pages, so I'm wondering if not inline citing the books will be a problem for the article's GA and FA noms. However, I've also noticed that several featured film articles, such as Casablanca, have books in their references but do not inline cite some of them. Thanks. -Dark Kubrick 17:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Copy right

The Lord of the Rings , Middle-earth both these FA articles contain images and maps that are stored on Commons and are subject to copyright, these have been nominated for deletion. Should these articles be sent to FARC Gnangarra 09:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

As per FA criteria 4, including images is not a prerequisite for a featured article. It would seem simpler to just remove the offending images. Optionally a fair use justification might be possible for the images which would allow the images to stay on the English Misplaced Pages and in the article while still being removed from Commons. --Allen3  10:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Middle-Earth is already at FAR BTW and eagerly waiting for reviewers. Marskell 10:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetization

Articles are ordered by first letter (see Special:Allpages). The alphabetization in the list is inconsistent, either going by the technical convention I just noted, or by last name for bio articles. Which shall it be, then? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetization is by first letter in all cases except for a person's name (which uses the last name instead of the first). Raul654 23:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Biographies

I think it can be a little confusing that biographies of people are listed in their field of work. I think it would be easier if there was a special section called biographies in which all biographies of people could be put. There can be several examples of people who could qualify for more than one category - for exeample is J.R.R. Tolkien listed in Literature but he could easily have been put in Language and Linguistics.

If someone is dynamic enough, yes, it's possible that (s)he can be put into more than one category - at which point, it becomes a judgement call. This is not usually an issue. However, creating one category that overlaps with all the others is not a good idea. Raul654 22:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Gregorian chant

Shouldn't Gregorian chant be listed under the Music category rather than Religion and mysticism? It's much more an article on music history than religion. The comparable article on religion would be Roman Rite. Peirigill 21:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Consistent presentation of information

Can those reviewing featured article candidates try and watch out for consistent presentation of information? I have done an extremely brief review of 5 featured article that were promoted in July. See part of the way down the talk page comment here. One of the problems I noticed in these articles, and elsewhere, is that information sometimes appears in an infobox and nowhere else. Similarly, information is sometimes presented in the lead section and nowhere else. It would seem logical to have the infobox and lead section (which are summaries of information from the main article) be based on the article, rather than bringing in new information, so the idea should be to check the infobox and lead section to see if they are synchronised with the main text of the article. ie. All information in these summary-style sections should appear in the main body of the article.

The main point of my review was to see whether the referencing style for the lead sections is inconsistent. The review and results were:

A dartboard selection of 5 from the 53 articles promoted to featured status in July 2006 (Misplaced Pages:Featured_article_candidates/Featured_log/July_2006), accessed in the afternoon of 20/08/2006 - I'll provide version links later if needed:

• The Philadelphia Inquirer - two references in the lead section, and one in the infobox
• Hurricane Esther (1961) - no references in the lead section
• Duke University - seven references in the lead section, and one in the info box
• Muhammad Iqbal - one reference in the lead section
• Mauna Loa - no references in the lead section

More comments available here.

Also, out of curiosity, does anyone who follow the FAC process have an idea how many get references added to their lead sections during the FAC process, or is the general attitude that it is OK for a lead section not to have any references (this was my view up until I starting asking around, and it seems there are different views on this). Carcharoth 15:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The lead section should, for the most part, summarize information found in the rest of the article. If the rest of the article is properly referenced, the lead section, almost by definition, doesn't need to include references. Raul654 17:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

That is what I used to think. Then I tried to follow the chain from lead section to "the bit further down in the article" to (hopefully) the reference. It is not as easy to do as it sounds. And in fact, just because something is a summary doesn't mean it doesn't need referencing. Summary sections of daughter articles still need references, so lead sections should as well. Before I swung round to this point of view, I initially tried to get the style guide to explicitly say that a lead section doesn't need references if the references exist elsewhere in the article, but met opposition to this idea.

The status quo seems to be that people won't stop you writing a lead section with no explicit references, but if another editor comes along and ask for a source for something that appears in the lead section, then pointing to the rest of the article is not good enough. The original editor will need to provide a reference at that point in the article. This ends up with lead sections (and indeed whole articles) with piecemeal referencing, rather than careful, thorough and comprehensive referencing. Carcharoth 17:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Unless you're putting a footnote on every sentence to begin with, you're going to get "piecemeal" referencing (or, more precisely, piecemeal citation, as material need not be directly cited to have come from the listed references) by default. I don't think it's any different in the lead section; and if the citation there is merely meant as an answer to editors asking where something is sourced from, rather than being for the benefit of readers, something like {{inote}} may be suitable for use. Kirill Lokshin 18:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your problem with the infoboxes. Take a look at some of the larger infoboxes, such as perhaps that of Venus or Iridium. Most of the information in that infobox is extremely useful and essential to have, yet I really don't see the point of having all of it somewhere in the article text as well. Thus, I contest your assessment that they are supposed to be some sort of "summaries". — Timwi 17:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree; one of the main purposes of infoboxes and other tables is to present information that is better presented in table form, rather than in the prose body of the article. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. You are both right. I had forgotten that some infoboxes present numerical data. I agree that repeating some of that would be silly. But I would like to point out that some of the data is repeated, and should be in the text of the article. Using your examples, the Venus article uses the orbital period of "224.7 Earth days" in the article, though the more accurate figure appears in the infobox. In the iridium article, the chemical symbol and atomic number appear in both article and infobox. But the more esoteric data from the infoboxes are not given in the article. On the basis of this, I would rephrase my comment along the lines of: "Infoboxes can summarise key information from the article, and also present background numerical data" (that last bit about 'background numerical data' is terrible wording, I know, but I hope you see what I mean). What I want to avoid is a situation where people create/expand an infobox, and then don't stop to think whether the information should go in the article as well. Think about a case where you scan an infobox, spot something interesting (eg. where a famous person lived), and then try to follow it up in the article but find there is nothing there. There is definitely a "summarising from the article" feel to many infoboxes that present tidbits of information, as opposed to the ones that present physical data. Carcharoth 23:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Overlapping categories

I notice that Angkor Wat and Mosque are currently found under the Religion heading. Quite properly they might also be located under the Art, Architecture and Archaeology heading. Is there any reason they can't be located under both headings as they are equally applicable?

Also, Isn't it time we separated Art, Architecture and archaeology into separate headings?--Mcginnly | Natter 08:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

And Kitsch should definitely be in Art' not Culture and Society.

Video games and board games

Separating video games from board games and keeping board games with sports makes little sense. The new category should be called Games and toys. FA Sudoku and former FA Lego were under Sports and games and neither fit under these new category names. Medvedenko 03:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The way I see this working out is that Computing is split to Computer hardware and Computer software and videogames with the pokemon characters put into the media sectionAtirage 14:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

What was the first featured article on wikipedia?

--Greasysteve13 08:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Looking at the "Today's FA" archives, it looks like it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, featured on February 22, 2004. – ClockworkSoul 23:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No, Mozart was the first article featured on the main page. There was, in fact, no one first featured article - those articles that were designated Brilliant prose and survived the "Refreshing Brilliant prose" vote, which converted them into featured articles. See Misplaced Pages:Archive/Refreshing brilliant prose Raul654 01:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Gold star

Does every FA get a little star at the top? I don't see one on the globular cluster page, so I wondered if it was only for articles when they show up on the front page? — RJH (talk) 15:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, from what I gather, there was/is a debate on whether the star should be allowed because it's "self-reference". So maybe that's why not all FAs have them. -- Grafikm 15:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

They all get them eventually, but they need to be manually added (since Raul654 doesn't do that when he's making the promotion). Kirill Lokshin 15:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I could it very quickly Kirill. But is there a consensus to do so? -- Grafikm 15:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

That's my impression. While a number of people find them objectionable, I don't think there's been any serious attempt at removing them for some time; and they have been placed on the overwhelming majority of FAs at this point. Kirill Lokshin 16:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, the FA talk template is transcluded 1109 times (by the way, that means there are three FARCs that were removed from WP:FA but still retain their talk page banner...) and the Fa star is transcluded 1108 times... IMHO there is a problem there, prolly because people closing FAs don't remove stars and notices from pages... But I may be wrong... -- Grafikm 16:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I pulled everything transcluded for {{featured}} into Excel. After eliminating Wikipages, user pages, templates, and archives...I count exactly 1106, the current number of FAs. Marskell 16:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, AWB still returns 1109 to me when filtered to mainspace... Don't get it... -- Grafikm 16:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right. I still perform these laborious, manual looks at things when various auto-assist programs would probably help me. Marskell 17:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

No, you are right, there are some archives that's true. Sorry about that :) -- Grafikm 18:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I cleaned up the mess. And it is a mess, because there are some blanked talk pages and stuff like that. Oh, and people adding the star to stubs too.. :) -- Grafikm 19:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Good work Graf. Given that occasionally newbies will simply add an article they like to the FA list, it's predictable that adding the star also occurs but is not noticed. Marskell 09:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Been on main page

Why does the been on main page script in my monobook not work anymore? Rlevse 21:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

User_talk:Raul654#Template:FA.2FBeenOnMainPage Raul654 01:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I've followed that link and pasted in the line of code indicated, but no dice. Isn't that all I should need to do? Paste in one line of code to my monobook file? — BrianSmithson 10:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It goes in your monobook.css file, not monobook.js. — TKD::Talk 10:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

That got it. Thanks. — BrianSmithson 11:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Broken link

The article "Cannabis rescheduling in the United States" doesn't exist. The article Cannabis rescheduling in the United States/Picture options does exist, but definitely doesn't warrant a bronze star.

I'd fix it myself, but I'm not allowed to play with the Featured articles.

The article does exist and it is a FA. Joelito (talk) 17:48, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey Could u please help me with my assignment An essay 5-6 (excluding cover page, bibliography, table of contents) Data distribution paradigms of -SPSD -SPMD -MPSD -MPMD Text book doesn’t information but use common and discuss -Involvement of DP an TP -Potential examples of how each may be used -Advantages and disadvantages where applicable -How information is distributed

Criteria "where appropriate, complemented by inline citations"

Per this discussion at WP:GAC, the text saying that a list of references are required, and "where appropriate, complemented by inline citations" is ambiguous. Does this mean

• when an inline citation is appropriate (because of the statement), it is required
• inline citations are required, and they must be placed in the locations in the text that are appropriate

The issue is the interpretation of "where". Gimmetrow 14:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The common practice among recently promoted articles—and probably applicable for all but the most unusual cases—would be "copious inline citations are required, and should be present throughout the article." Kirill Lokshin 14:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

That is the common practice, and should be encouraged, but is it required by the criteria? Gimmetrow 15:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Meh. The FAC criteria have always been somewhat vaguely worded, and I haven't seen any attempts at ruleslawyering with them succeed. No article without sufficient inline citations will pass FAC at present; whether that's something that the criteria state explicitly or merely an unwritten rule understood by the participants seems, to me, to be more a philosophical concern than a practical one.

More to the point, the rigorousness of any review process is tied more to the quality of articles coming out than to the wording of the criteria. The people working on the GAC guidelines should concern themselves with determining whether the resulting article will actually be good; a strict correspondence in wording between the GA and FA criteria seems unnecessary. Kirill Lokshin 15:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It is a deliberately vague compromise that was hammered out some time ago, when inline citations were coming into vogue. The point is that you do not have to cite every single fact, but only where it would be "appropriate", because it is particularly important, or surprising, or controversial. Having said that, people these days seem to be tending more to the former than the latter. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It's usually easier to cite a lot and not need it than to wait until someone drops in a bunch of {{fact}} tags while the article is on FAC and have to scurry to find the citations. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this, but it is a bad sign when people object to a lack of inline citations simply because there aren't any (or enough) inline citations. We don't want to make people do work that doesn't really improve the quality of the article, and adding citations to uncontroversial statements to make sure that the article has "enough" is generally a waste of time. This may become an uglier problem now that FARC is removing article simply for lacking inline citations, without regard to whether the article has accuracy or verifiability problems, which may be a mistake. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

So, in summary, it is theoretically possible for an article to be great (FA) with zero inline citations (ALoan:16:20), but this would be unusual in practice (Kirill:16:39, 14:49)? Gimmetrow 16:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Only in theory if there are no facts where it would be "appropriate" to add inline citations. An article would be very unlikely to pass FAC these days without some inline citations. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Roughly, it appears that most participants believe that if you have to cite it if you were writing a research paper, you most likely have to cite it in FAC too. Titoxd 18:37, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

"It is theoretically possible for an article to be great (FA) with zero inline citations...but this would be unusual in practice." Not unusual--completely impossible. This is something of a red herring.

Kirill is right above--you only need to Wiki-lawyer if you notice erratic output. An occasional FAC may pass with not enough, and occasionally they may be closed where the criteria are met but there are not a lot of comments. But the consistency of the output in general is fine so, despite some occasional questioning, the criteria aren't lawyered over. Because the output in general is not fine at GA, people spend k upon k debating wording. Marskell 18:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. I believe that FAs should not be used without a decent proxy in your hard drive. Numbers of KBs would decrease without citations or any wording debations. My philosophical concern, in theory, would not be cited with FAC. TimHama 10:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

FA Awareness

In talking to various people over time, I've learned that the only people who really understand what goes into a Featured Article are people involved with the FAC process in some way, or are pretty serious Misplaced Pages editors and just inevitably are familiar with FAC even if they don't participate there. I think that most editors, if they even know FAC exists, believe that FAC is a pretty casual process where articles without any glaring POV are promoted, usually because people think the topic is cool or important and so on (witness all the hopeless nominations of articles along these lines). On the dreaded Misplaced Pages Review, I was amused to find that supposedly informed critics of Misplaced Pages seriously believed that Raul simply once a day picked a random article he liked, without any community input, and that's how an article made it to the main page.

What I'm getting at is that most readers and observers seem to think the FA selection process is a lot more random and undescriminating than it actually is. And this undervalues FAs, if so many people have the perception that they're just random non-stub articles. I think if people realized how much scrutiny goes into selecting an FA, how it truly is one of the most difficult (and possibly rewarding) tasks you can try on Misplaced Pages, that there'd be a lot more appreciation for them.

I'm not sure what the solution is, exactly. Maybe modifying some existing pages about FAs, maybe including a link from the main page to something about how FAs are actually chosen would be a good way to dispel people's common misconceptions. But however we do it, I think that if people realized FAs are a lot more than just random articles Raul happens to enjoy, I think people'd have a lot more respect for the process and for Misplaced Pages in general. --W.marsh 13:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you regarding this issue; the importance of understanding how a FAC is promoted and the strict requirements it undergoes should be more widespread. Exactly how to do this, I'm not sure either: perhaps Misplaced Pages:Featured articles, linked to from the sidebar and Main Page, could contain a more descriptive description (talk about redundancy!)? Or perhaps Misplaced Pages:What is a featured article? could be more prominently linked? Not too sure... Flcelloguy (A note?) 13:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Although this might not go over too well, I was thinking one idea would be an essay along the lines of Misplaced Pages:Featured Article standards are high (probably written by someone with more experience than me) that clearly spells out how many hours of work go into the average successful FA, and so on. Link to that maybe for a week from the main page, and maybe include it in the FA template that is put on talk pages. --W.marsh 14:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

What I'd been musing over was Misplaced Pages:Non-experts writing Featured Articles. On Misplaced Pages:100,000 feature-quality articles it's noted that "we may be able to get by without the writers and researchers being subject-matter experts themselves." If we are going to get anywhere close to a 100k feature-quality articles (which seems a ludicrous, if noble, objective) we absolutely must have non-experts working. This might not sit well given concerns over expert retention, but encouraging non-experts and encouraging experts to write are not mutually exclusive. We should do both. The purpose would be "yes, you can write an FA, but you must be very conscientious. Here are some pointers." The problem with "Featured Article standards are high" is that it sounds discouraging, rather than inclusive. Marskell 11:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Star Wars/Science Fiction Bias in Media Section

Has anyone noticed the bias in the articles that are chosen in the Literature and Media sections? There are 6 featured articles that are directly related to Star Wars, and many others that are also related to Science Fiction. Isn't this limiting the scope of the featured articles category? Isn't it a little unsettling that 6 star wars articles made it in, and not one on William Shakespeare? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MonkBirdDuke (talk • contribs)

Articles are written by people. For some reason, people prefer writing about SW rather than Shakespeare. :) -- Grafikm 11:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, but the featured articles are chosen by some kind of committee of editors/administrators, right? Who are these people, a bunch of scifi comic book nerds like you? MonkBirdDuke 02:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Please don't insult other editors. Featured articles are chosen on content, not subject. The biases of those reviewing featured article candidates should not play a role. They cannot promote articles on Shakespeare if the articles are not of sufficient quality. If you wish to rectify this, you may begin improving an article of your choice to featured status. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Why does everyone on here get their feelings hurt so easily? MonkBirdDuke 13:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

MBD, you have hit the nail on the head. My personal policy is to vote Support only if the article is related to Pokémon or Star Wars. I once considered voting Support on a Doctor Who article but ended up going Neutral instead. Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with this. When I actually took the time to read the Padmé Amidala article (after it had passed FA), I was quite pleased with its quality. Can't say that about Juliet Capulet you can't. — BrianSmithson 22:44, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

If your comment was directed at me, MBD, you needn't concern yourself with hurting my feelings, nor do I see that anyone else's feelings were hurt. I don't know what kind of experience you may have at other web sites, but I think you'll find that your arguments carry more weight here if you can make your point with logic, rather than insults. — Knowledge Seeker দ 20:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Just for information, I don't contribute to SW articles... :) -- Grafikm 10:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Teh this sucks man why cant we all get along. As for the point I think we could increase the variety of the featured articles as some subjects are more abudant than others...Doesn't exactly need to be william shakespear though

Policy tag

I've come to the position, in a roundabout way, that the policy tag ({{Policy}}) ought to be applied at Misplaced Pages:What is a featured article?. I'll guess something like this has been raised before, so someone can point out any previous consensus. But I actually think it's needed now after some thoughts and posting regarding GA, our other, IMHO, very flawed content analysis procedure.

I posted last night that if someone/some rule from GA suggests that X must be done on article, the demand can be safely ignored because GA does not produce policy (unless the demand agrees with policy, in which case the GA demand is redundant). For example, I have removed the failed GA tags in the past because they're ugly, and IMO articles haven't passed or failed anything with GA, given how haphazard that process is; I felt I was within the bounds of IAR doing so. But then what if someone argued for removing an FA tag? I realize people don't generally violate the FA procedure, but if one of the FA pages had the tag (WIAFA makes the most sense) this would become de jure. Further, this would clearly demonstrate that FA is the superior content process on Wiki. Marskell 19:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:WIAFA is not "policy", in terms of describing how Wikipedians should behave, create or format content, etc. It is simply the list of criteria that are relevant to deciding whether an article should have "featured" status or not (and thus be recognised as one of our best articles, and eligible for its day in the sun on the Main Page). There is relevant discussion on the WIAFA talk page (probably archived). It is not necessary for all pages in Misplaced Pages: space to be tagged as "policy" or something else.

Please don't remove {{FACfailed}} from the talk page of a former FAC. Whether the template is "ugly" or not (and aesthetics are not really that important on a talk page anyway, although the current templates were standardised some time ago to give them a more consistent look), the template lets an editor know that the article was once nominated on FAC, and when, and provides a link to the relevant discussion subpage (if one exists), which may include sugegstions for improvements to the article. Perhaps removing it would be an instance of WP:IAR (although I am not sure how doing so improves the encyclopedia). On the other hand, it could also be considered disruptive. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Shit, that was a typo that rendered the whole para nonsense. I never remove FACfailed. I remove {{failedGA}}. I don't go hunting for it—just on pages that I edit.

I realize a policy tag is not always necessary, but given that GA is being shoehorned everywhere, I would like to undergird FA with a policy stamp to show that standards here are our definitive upper standards. Marskell 10:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. We all make typos (WP:WAIFA - ?! - corrected above). As far as I can see, {{failedGA}} does not really help a reviewer very much. I suspect WikiProject article classification will prove to be somewhat more useful in the long run. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

It is one part "does it help?" and another "what does it suggest in terms of Wiki standards?". GA tags imply to a new or uninformed user that that process is an official one, when it is not. I would suggest in a similar vein, that the assessment scales also take a policy tag or not be placed on article talk. This isn't wiki-lawyering—if people notice certain assessment scales have become policy it would have salutatory affect on how they go about trying improve articles. Marskell 10:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, as long as the "featured article" process and WikiProject assessment are achieving something, I am not sure whether we need to give them the added imprimatur of "policy"; nor would the added shiny label help very much if they are not working. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:00, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

One principal concern I've had is the degree to which GA drains manpower because it parallels FA but doesn't link to it. An assessment scale that were policy, with FA at its pinnacle, might draw people into this process and away from that one. Look at the Misplaced Pages talk:Good article candidates—it may well beat RfA talk for wasted energy. Marskell 11:12, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Whether FA process needs to be strengthened to policy, I don't know, but GA is detrimental to Wiki for more reasons than the drain of resources: because the process is haphazard, articles can be promoted by vandals, sock and meat puppets, and articles that are inaccurate, POV, and OR are easily promoted. Sandy 13:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't be so harsh on the GA people, even this got featured and even appeared on the main page, despite having lightly trafficked nomination page. Well at least GA's don't get to be displayed on the Main Page. --Howard the Duck 15:34, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Both in early 2004. Believe it or not, All your base are belong to us was featured-standard then, and that was a resonably well-trafficed FAC for its day. It would never be promoted now. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect categorization of Medicine articles

I understand that the FA category for Psychology is underpopulated (that topic area gets hit with too many speculative edits), but why are some of the FAs listed there not in Biology and medicine? Asperger syndrome (AS), for example, is not a psychology topic: it falls in the medical realms of neurology or psychiatry. Psychologists may treat persons with AS, just as they treat persons without AS, for the effects of living with the condition. The word psychology is mentioned once in the article, anecdotally in quotes. How/where do we go about developing consensus for fixing this categorization? Is this only an artefact on Featured Articles, or is this occurring elsewhere in Wiki? I hate to bring up the inferior example of Good Articles, but they have correctly included Tourette syndrome (also a neurology or psychiatry medical topic) in Biology and medicine, rather than Psychology. The situation is similar for AS; can we fix that here? Sandy 13:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• I thought the same thing when I was looking at the categorisation of FAs recently, neurological disorders should be under medicine, not psychology. This would leave the Milgram experiment all own its own, so I'd suggest moving it to culture and society until we have some more articles that are actually about psychology.--Peta 13:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree, but would note that culture and society is something of a grab-bag. Marskell 20:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

BUMP. Sandy (Talk) 21:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this is splitting a mighty fine hair, but I can live with it. Raul654 21:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, the fundamental problem with single placements is multiple classifications. I just followed the category trees for Schizophrenia up a few branches and "psychology" certainly seemed to be a legitimate placement here to me. However, I won't waste my time being bullied by those with more clout than I. Rfrisbie 23:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Another issue is the value in having a category with only three articles, without mentioning that both Schizophrenia and Autism need to be reviewed, and don't meet current FA criteria. Sandy (Talk) 23:46, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The arguments seem to be somewhat circular. Remove the heading because it has no articles. Remove the articles because they're really about something else. Don't list articles more than once because that would be too much work. Usability from the perspective of the reader seems to be what's on the short end of the stick here. Oh, well. Rfrisbie 01:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Just correctly categorize them, it's simple. If it doesn't fall under a certain umbrella, don't put it there. LuciferMorgan 20:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hullad Moradabadi

Hullad MoradabadiHullad Moradabadi

Date of Birth : 29.05.1942 Birth Place : Gujrawala (Pakistan) Name : Susheel Kumar Chadha Education : B.S.C,M.A Pen Name : Hullad Moradabadi and in serious writing in the name of “Sabr”. From 1962 on Hindi Kavya Manch.

Misplaced Pages:1 featured article per quarter

I just added the following to Wiki space. The idea is a list to encourage regular FA writing. I had thought of listing the proposal somewhere, but then thought no harm in just adding it. Sigs on the list most welcome. Marskell 15:09, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Egyptian Center for culture & Art ( ECCA )

The Egyptian Center for Culture & Art (ECCA) was founded in 2003 to record and promote traditional music in Egypt. Traditional Egyptian music is increasingly in danger of being relegated to the status of an exotic and de-contextualised tourist curiosity or to a place on the shelves of academic archives far from the daily lives of its dwindling practitioners. ECCA aims to document, renew and present traditional music in Egypt as a vibrant and renewable resource, a multi-layered point of reference to the cultural richness of Egyptian music and arts. ECCA further encourages efforts to return the music to the critical role it has played in the daily life and imagination of the Egyptian people, to counter the trend to isolate it from its original communities and to share this rich resource with the world community. A number of strategies activities support these aims:

1-to systematically record, document and archive current practice so as to make it available to scholars, musicians and to an increasingly broad-based audience. ECCA's commitment to high technical standards of documentation, whether photographic, film or audio recordings facilitates the distribution of material beyond local audiences to television stations, festivals and photo exhibitions.

2-to promote an audio aesthetic that respects the integrity of the instruments and voices, an alternative to the aesthetic that imposes echo, reverb and other effects dominating the popular market.

3-to provide increased and diverse performance possibilities for its practitioners, thereby expanding the audience for this tradition, renewing the lively performer-audience relationship and increasing performers' opportunties for financial sustainability.

3-to organise encounters among a range of performing artists (musicians, poets, dancers, storytellers), as well as sound, video and light technicians involved in the performing arts, bringing them together in the context of workshops, rehearsals, facilitating their participation in festivals or just socialising. Makan offers these artists and technicians the basic and necessary infrastructure, together with an ambiance and spirit that can inspire the creation of new forms and traditions as a strategy for self-sustainability.

4-to expand its already substantial network of contacts in order to further cooperation and the establishment of partnerships with a wide range of cultural organisations and scholarly institutions from all over the world.

The value of cultural diversity to the human community, like the value of biological diversity to continued life on this planet cannot be underestimated. As the world shrinks, dominant ideologies, religions and cultural expressions overwhelm the margins and we lose essential elements of the creative process-our appreciation of difference, our freedom to choose, to experiment and to dream of alternatives. ECCA will continue to build on its activities and strategies to promote creative dialogue among people and cultures with special focus on Mediterranean and African people and to encourage perception of these traditions as important and critical to the human community.

Ahmed El Maghraby, Director

ECCA "Makan"

1, Saad Zagloul st.11461 - El Dawawin, Cairo, Egypt

Tel: +2 02 7920 878

email: makan@egyptmusic.org

website: www.egyptmusic.org

Gold links for FA

I like the mini FA star for those identified as such to know that one is reading the best of Misplaced Pages. I also suggest that for featured articles, in lieu of the regular navy blue hyperlinks, gold coloured hyperlinks to be added. This will create some interest for a reader to click and read WP's best articles as gold is the colour for the finest and is similar to the gold (or brownish gold) colour given to an FA star. But it should be automatic as manually tagging takes too much work. Someone can work on those lines. Idleguy 13:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

That would be really really cool, but I don't think it'd work, the colours are built into Internet Explorer.Simondrake 00:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

This article is a potential candidate for Feature Article: Ilaiyaraaja

Could some authority look at this music Wiki article to assess it for potential Feature Article endorsement? It concerns India's most prolific film composer. I think it is in solid shape: objective, concise, covers the necessary issues of the subject enyclopaedically, contains rigorous referencing consisting of credible sources that include academic journal article, theses and published books.

Would appreciate an FA administrator taking a look at this Wiki. Cheers. Splashprince 14:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

You can get feedback by submitting the article to peer review. Sandy 15:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Sandy, thanks ;) Splashprince 23:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Small helpful addition

Maybe someone could add that one featured article a day is added - this is an essential, if obvious, part of featured articles. I don't know how to put it there myself. -Slash-

That's not actually the case; you're probably thinking of "Today's featured article". Kirill Lokshin 11:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Transport

Do motorcycling or automotive articles come under this system, and if so, can someone say where? Seasalt 07:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Featured_articles#Transport. Marskell 10:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

thanxSeasalt 11:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Colditz Castle

Any suggestions on what to do with this? Clearly neither of the subarticles are FA worthy (no citations to speak of, and poorly organized/formatted). Any objections to just removing it from the list? --Spangineer (háblame) 03:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The main part of the featured article is now Oflag IV-C which is an exact copy of the entire material on this subject that was in the original article. If you consider it to be poorly organized/formatted, that didn't appear to be an objection when it was originally a "featured article"! - Syrenab 13:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This was promoted over a year and a half ago, and wouldn't stand a chance at FAC today. I guess WP:FAR is probably the best way to go. --Spangineer (háblame) 16:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Holy crap - they destroyed the article. I'd recommend a revert all the way back to the last version before it was mutilated. Raul654 18:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

We're trying to deal with it now at WP:FAR - a mess. Sandy (Talk) 18:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Categorization of Apollo 8

I note that Apollo 8 is listed under "Physics and Astronomy" rather than under "Engineering" with the Saturn V article. Does anyone else agree that this is problematic? If it is, is there a procedure by which we can move it, or do we just do it? MLilburne 07:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

What do you suggest? That both be astronomy, or both be engineering? I think the rationale was that a rocket is not necessarily astronomy (but certainly engineering), while Apollo is definitely astronomy. --Spangineer (háblame) 15:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I see Apollo as being engineering rather than astronomy. It may count as planetary science, but astronomy is generally seen as the study of stars and galaxies rather than moons and so on. MLilburne 16:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Astronomy is much broader than that, and it definitely includes Planetary science, which includes the study of moons. That said, what's wrong with multiple listings in cases like this? If that's a big deal, the article's classification gets to Technology sooner than it gets to Astronomy (I didn't actually find a classification going directly back to Engineering). If you have to pick just one, go ahead and switch it. Rfrisbie 17:02, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of opening the door to multiple listings; I envision that creating a "bookkeeping" mess. Sandy (Talk) 17:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Raul has expressed strong disapproval of multiple listings in the past, and he's the guy that directly maintains this page. Let's avoid that mess. --Spangineer (háblame) 17:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, if Raul doesn't like it, that's good enough for me! ;-) Rfrisbie 17:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with everything Spangineer has said. I conceed it's a subjective thing - Saturn V strikes me as being a better fit in engineering whereas Apollo 8 is about a mission to space (which is closer to astronomy than engineering, IMO). On the other hand, I don't really have a strong opinion on the matter, except that I'm very strongly against having multiple listings because it creates the bookkeeping nightmare Sandy mentioned. Raul654 18:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand the categories as well as some people, so thanks for explaining, everyone. I do see why it was put under "Astronomy". I just didn't think of looking for it there... perhaps it's just me. MLilburne 19:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. I'd wait a day or two and see if anyone else has an opinion, and then just make the change. --Spangineer (háblame) 16:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Crime

Where would articles on crime go?--Lucy-marie 10:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

My first guess would be the Law section with History being a second possibility. Depending on the nature of the crime other categories could also be appropriate. It is also possible to create a new category if a large enough number of new crime related articles pass review at WP:FAC. --Allen3  12:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Law. If we got enough crime related articles, I might consider changing the title of that section to Law and Law enformcent, or Law and Order, or something along those lines. Raul654 17:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Saffron, Pepper - consistency

Why is Pepper in Food, while the three Saffron articles are in Biology and medicine? Confused, Sandy (Talk) 19:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Literature, Music, Drama/Theatre

I moved W. S. Gilbert from Music to Literature. Gilbert was a playwright (some of his works were with collaborators who wrote music). Shouldn't there be a separate heading for Theatre and Drama that would include everything from Opera to Ibsen that is performed on a stage? -- Ssilvers 22:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Biology and medicine in one category? +

I don't feel really comfortable with the fact that species such as Albatross and Albertosaurus are put under the same header as AIDS and Asperger Syndrome. Can't we put all species and biological events/theories/etc. under one header (including virusses and bacteria which can cause diseases and syndromes) and all medicine related articles under one header (this would include the syndromes and diseases, caused by these virusses and bacteria). For instance: HIV and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (it they would have FA status) would be in the biology category, while AIDS and tuberculosis would be in the medicine category. Sijo Ripa 14:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

And then, we have to figure out why the three Saffron articles are in there, while Pepper is in Food. Sandy (Talk) 14:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you're right. Personally I think pepper belongs to biology, and saffron to food. Because so much plants have been used by humans (food, medicinal, culture, religion, etc.) often in several ways at the same time, that it would be confusing to assign some to one category, and another similar plant to biology. In that perspective: Tea or saffron would be food, but Camellia sinensis and crocus (saffron) would be biology. Sijo Ripa 15:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

A few questions

I know that featured articles are voted for and that they must meet a certain criteria of professionalism, but how are featured articles chosen? What I mean is in what time period are they chosen in (example: a week, a month) and how many are chosen in said time period? Thank you.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.247.126.44 (talk • contribs) .

See Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates. Anyone can nominate an article, and then members of the community give feedback. If major concerns are addressed quickly, an article could become a featured article within a week of nomination. It might take several weeks or a month if it takes longer to address all the issues. Recently there have been around 50 new featured articles promoted each month. --Spangineer (háblame) 18:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Also be sure to read Misplaced Pages:What is a featured article? and ensure that the article meets the criteria before nominating an article. Joelito (talk) 18:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Where's the star?

Where did the star go?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.70.240.161 (talk • contribs)

Could you be a bit more specific with your question?--thunderboltz 04:36, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Block IPs from editing FA of the day

I don't know if this has been said before, but why the featured article on the main page is not protected from vandals IPs? I mean, it's quite amusing that people here nominate article and put it to main page. Then people always vandalize it and other people revert back. Sometimes information is even lost. Then if the vandalism is very tough editing will be blocked. Why not to do this before putting it to mainpage? There shouldn't necessarily be even the tag but just don't let IPs edit the article on that day.

Why not? --Pudeo (Talk) 18:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Don't protect Main Page featured articles. Joelito (talk) 18:48, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Also see this discussion at the Administrators' noticeboard, of what happened today to the San Francisco article. It was pretty bad: there are times when the rules must be ignored.Sandy (Talk) 01:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

That rule needs dropped. Vandals should be shown no mercy. We shouldn't have to put up with them at all. Anon editors should be banned in total. This article seems better and better. Rlevse 02:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, we have the AntiVandalBots... Though, rather waiting for the vandalism to happen and then revert it, it would sure be nice if new edits to articles (or at least a certain subset of vulnerable articles) could be run through some such filter as part of the process of saving the edit. We also now have automatic edit summaries for "blanking page"s and "replacing pages with ...". There must be a way that MediaWiki could incorporate a filter that detects such edit is probably vandalism, and not allow it to go live until it gets checked and approved by a more experienced editor. --Aude (talk) 15:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

See the link I provided above. Rlevse 00:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Tongo (Star Trek)

The page on Tongo (Star Trek) has a little feature article star. But it's....well, shit.

I sincerely doubt it's a featured article so how come it's got the star? How do I remove it?Simondrake 00:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

by rm'ing the FA template. Check the edit I just did. I put a notice on the guys talk page too.Rlevse 00:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

little blurb at top

Just thought i'd point out that in the tan box at the top of the FA page, it says that one in 1290 articles are featured, but ehn calculated with the current #s it is actually 1 in every 1317. I do not know how to change this, but if somebody could. that would be great. ~ThePedro

• I disagree. The number is 1298.6 at 1:24 on 22 November 2006.

--Meno25 04:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Glynn Lunney

This article, which I nominated, has just been promoted and I think it's in the wrong category. Lunney is an engineer and thus fits better into "Engineering and Technology" than into "Physics and Astronomy". Am I allowed to just move the article myself, or should I leave it to someone else to do? MLilburne 22:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose that is a better fit. Raul654 22:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I will move it, then. MLilburne 08:56, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Splitting up

Given we are now well over the 1000 articles stage, all the categories are beginning to look somewhat crowded. Would it be a good idea to split them down into more specific categories? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Seperate category for hurricane articles?

Apologies if this has been discussed... With over 25 articles (and counting: WikiProject Tropical cyclones just rocks), there are more hurricane articles alone than the total articles in some entire categories combined. A Tropical Cyclone category would be a bit more specific than the norm, but with the quality and quantity of the articles involved, it would be entirely appropriate. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 12:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The section still isn't bigger than the largest ones, like History, Media, and War. Maybe split it once hurricanes dominate the page, not just their category. --Spangineer (háblame) 17:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Seperating Meteorology from Geology and geophysics might be more logical. Instead of just hurricanes, its all weather topics. Medvedenko 22:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Spangineer: working on it. :) Titoxd 00:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Featured articles not visible in classic skin

Hi, for people who are using classic skin, there is no hint that an article is a featured one, because the little star in the right upper edge is not visible. Is ist possible to fix that? --Nina 13:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It originally was that way, but there were some issues with some browsers using the Classic skin. I'm not sure what happened from there... you're probably more likely to get someone to fix it on the Village Pump. Titoxd 00:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll try it there. --Nina 10:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Charles Atangana

I think Charles Atangana should be moved from the "History" section to "Royalty, nobility, and heraldry". Either that or "Politics and government". Either would be less generic than "History", I think. Any comments or objections? — BrianSmithson 13:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Politics section would not work because thats really reserved for current government, the government Atangana worked for has since been replaced. I haven't read the entire article yet so I can't be sure about Royalty but it seems History is the best section. Medvedenko 04:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. He was royal, he was nobility, his daughter succeeded him. Why doesn't be belong under "Royalty, nobility, and heraldry"?. — BrianSmithson 11:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the "nonsense" comment. As for "Politics and government" being reserved for current governments, his daughter did succeed him after an interregnum. — BrianSmithson 13:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and moved him to "Royalty, nobility, and heraldry". There doesn't seem to be any compelling reason not to. -- BrianSmithson 06:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Wrong ratio

We claim that there are 1183 featured articles out of (at moment) 1514222 articles. This means that ratio is 1/1280, but 1/1270 is claimed on the project page. The calculation is done using {{formatnum: {{rounddown|{{#expr: {{NUMBEROFARTICLES:R}} / 1183}}|-1}} }}, so I am quite amazed that this wrong result comes out. --gala.martin (what?) 09:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

It's the Rounddown thing—1514222/1183 = 1279.98, which gets rounded down to 1270. --Spangineer (háblame) 04:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Featured article picture

How is the main page picture selected from within the featured article? I'm a contributer of an upcoming FA, and I'd like to ensure that the picture on the main page inspires readers to read the whole article. Is there a way to tag the desired picture? Appraiser 01:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Today's featured article/requests. Sandy (Talk) 02:01, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Which is the SHORTEST Featured article (by length)?

Can anyone direct me to a Featured article here that is considered among the shortest of the lot? I need to get an idea of what the lower bound for length is. I think Dayuan is one. Any others? Thank you. AppleJuggler 05:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Try Australian Green Tree Frog, or Austin Nichols. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 05:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring infoboxes, the appendix sections (references, external links, etc.), and large tables:

• Austin Nichols: ~13KB
• Australian Green Tree Frog: ~13KB
• Diary of a Camper: ~9KB
• Hurricane Irene (2005): ~7KB

Length is not an actionable objection. Comprehensiveness is. Although these articles have been determined to be comprehensive at these lengths, some featured articles would not be comprehensive at 30 or even 40 KB. — TKD::Talk 10:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Dev920 and TKD, really appreciate your rapid responses and explanation regarding comprehensiveness. I was wondering if the shortness of an article I'm working on would be an impediment for the attainment of FA. Thanks. With regards, AppleJuggler 02:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: as to the statement "length not being objectionable", I would have to disagree. In particular, I would like to know what the LONGEST Featured article is (by size)? A suggestion, for the moment, is that the FA guidelines begin to implement length restrictions; some FAs I know are 60-70kb in length. I only suggest this because in the future there may grow to be a conflict between WP:FA project and the WP:ELAC project. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 18:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I indeed miswrote when I said that length is not an actionable objection; I was thinking on the lower end. On the upper end, a criterion is that the article remains focused on the topic without becoming bogged down into unnecessary details. However, when using summary style, care must be taken that the split articles retain enough context. I don't disagree that very long articles should be split, but I generally think that 32 KB is a highly unrealistic goal for many topics.

As for longest FAs, the longest that I know of is Ketuanan Melayu at 107 KB. Last I checked, World War I and Final Fantasy VII were both above 90 KB. — TKD::Talk 02:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

For the record, I strongly disagree with WP:ELAC's premise and methods, as they aren't looking at prose size, rather overall size, which includes citations. WP:LENGTH explains the difference, and explains that 30 - 50KB of readable prose is manageable to most readers; readable prose per WP:LENGTH is the guideline I use when evaluating FACs. Also for the record, I (and several others) strongly objected to the size of Ketuanan Melayu, and I still object to it - considering the number of actionable objections to its size, I didn't think it should have been promoted. World War I is no longer featured - it was defeatured this week. I haven't looked at the readable prose on Final Fantasy. Sandy (Talk) 16:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Template:FA number

Per the consensus at Talk:Main Page#Number of FAs mentioned as well as total number of articles, please!, I have created {{FA number}} to allow an FA counter on the Main Page. In order to allow one-stop updating, I have replaced occurrences of the number here with the transcluded template. Thanks, BanyanTree 21:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

<confused> ... It's not a counter, it's a hard-wired number, which seems to mean we now have to edit another page when adding or deleting FAs (already a labor-intensive process) ... what am I missing? Sorry ... apparently I'm confused. Sandy (Talk) 21:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Example, Chick Bowen just added back in Matthew Brettingham - the count is now wrong. Do we separately change the template? Sandy (Talk) 22:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we do, which was my primary concern - it is making a labor intensive task more laborious. Raul654 22:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I was surprised a full day went by without anyone noticing MB was missing. Chick Bowen 22:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, but the count wasn't reduced when Brettingham was removed, so the count should still be correct. I don't like having the count on a separate page - it just creates another thing to keep track of, and another page to edit each time FAs are added or removed. Looks like Brettingham is straightened away now. Sandy (Talk) 22:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Sandy and Raul. LuciferMorgan 02:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate that you, as the editors who make FA turn, don't like a separate page. Hopefully, you think the benefits of a Main Page count and the ability to transclude the number around the wiki worth the extra inconvenience. If you could join in at the discussion at Talk:Main Page, someone may come up with a solution that takes into the concerns above. It would be great if you could add any thoughts you may have, such as if the entire idea of an FA count should be nixed or if there is some process that we haven't come up with. Thanks! - BanyanTree 02:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the idea should be nixed - I'll weigh in over there again. The people who proposed the idea probably have no idea of the number of steps involved when an article is featured or de-featured, and editing yet another page just so the number can show on the main page is goofiness. Sandy (Talk) 03:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not just use a bot to count the number of articles in Category:Misplaced Pages featured articles Gnangarra 03:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That is being discussed at the link above (talk - main page). Sandy (Talk) 03:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

A request for a bot that will count the number of items on the page and put the result in the template has been made at Misplaced Pages:Bot requests#featured article counter. I've added my own idea for a vandal spoofing feature. Any thoughts on that or the idea in general are welcome. - BanyanTree 13:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I had made a related request for bot-tracking of featured content back in June. Nobody took note of it and the proposal was effectively nuked (archived). The same bot proposal could have been extended to keep track of this feature also. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 19:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Not sure I know the whole story here, but isn't it easier to update the number of FAs in one place, i.e., a transcluded template? Rather than on the FA page, then on the home page (proposed), then on the... etc. –Outriggr § 08:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not like this template. It is more work when removing FAs. Joelito (talk) 22:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I just counted: to close out one FAR, Joel had to edit SEVEN different pages. This is going to be a problem, and is likely to mess up the count. We should revert the whole idea now. Having the articles one place, and the count another, is not good practice. Sandy (Talk) 23:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

That's why you make a bot update the count, not a person... Titoxd 00:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Titoxd's above comments. As it now stands, the template is obviously inconvenient. However, before writing off the idea, I suggest we wait a reasonable amount of time to give the bot guys an opportunity to code it and get it running. If things go right, it should actually reduce the amount of work that Joel and I have to do. Raul654 00:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, OK. When are we likely to get a taker on the bot? And then, since I'm not (and don't want to be an admin), will I be able to run it if/when Joel forgets on closing a FAR, or will the number just be corrected the next time the bot is run (don't know how bots work)? Sandy (Talk) 00:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully the bot will simply count the number of FAs and update the count in the template. Joelito (talk) 00:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

In reply to Sandy - my wish is for the bot to run periodically (at least once a day; preferably closer to once per hour). Raul654 00:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

See also: Misplaced Pages:Bot_requests#featured_article_counter Raul654 00:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Much better - in other words, no one has to do anything - it happens automatically, unless the bot breaks? Sandy (Talk) 00:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

(too many edit conflicts to count)Jmax- has kindly agreed to code the bot on the bot request page and stated that he would let me know when he had a test page set up. So, with the bot as requested, everyone does their normal addition and subtraction from WP:FA, but doesn't worry about figuring out the total count. I do think that six edits is still way too many for one action and it may be worth thinking through if you want bot assistance for those, though that's probably getting ahead of ourselves. - BanyanTree 00:43, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

thanks for the feedback, BanyanTree. No one who does the work is complaining about the work in closing FACs and FARs (it's just me :-), and I'm only kicking and screaming because another step was added by folks who didn't seem to take into account the work involved. With the bot, things should be much better. Sandy (Talk) 00:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

bot request for approval

Jmax- has completed his initial coding. See User:Jmax-bot/FACounter for the initial run. He has started Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval#Jmax-bot to receive sanction to run the bot. There is a discussion section there for questions and comments. Also, he has requested that he be provided with additional members of the whitelist, which automatically includes all admins. I assume that Sandy would be an uncontroversial addition, but what other non-admin regulars should be added? Thanks, BanyanTree 03:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The main users from FAR will be Marskell (talk · contribs) and Joelr31 (talk · contribs) If the bot runs automatically, there's no need to add me. Sandy (Talk) 03:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think I fully explained the vandal spoofing feature I requested. If a normal user changes the number of articles the bot will wait 15 minutes past a normal update in case it is vandalism and needs to be reverted. This is not the case with users on the "whitelist", which automatically includes admins, but to which non-admin FA regulars must be added manually. Let's give an example of how it could work (I'm not sure how Jmax- wants to implement this), assuming an update at 12:00 -

11:30: AdminX removes two articles as part of FARC

11:58: UserA blanks the page.

12:00: The bot checks the page, sees that UserA is not on the whitelist and waits

12:02: WhitelistedUserB reverts the vandalism by UserA to the version by AdminX

12:15: 15 minutes having elapsed, the bot checks again. It sees that the last editor was whitelisted and updates the count.

Without the vandal spoofing feature, the template would be updated to show 0. Long story short, you should definitely be on the whitelist. - BanyanTree 03:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I see - learning a lot here! Yes, please add me, as I do keep track of that number, and would notice vandalism or unauthorized changes. Sandy (Talk) 04:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• One question. What happens if an RC patroller reverts the vandalism? Neither UserA nor VandalReverter would be on the whitelist... what would the bot do then? Titoxd 04:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Another question: users routinely change the categories or names (to fix redirects) of articles: if the last edit is not an admin, what will the bot do? (Should we move these questions to the bot page?) Sandy (Talk) 04:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the above was my conceptualization as I wrote the request. I don't actually know what Jmax- coded, so questions should be directed to Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval#Jmax-bot to help with troubleshooting. - BanyanTree 04:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll copy over my question, as well as Titoxd's. Sandy (Talk) 04:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

autoformatting and date-links

The vexed issue of date-links occasionally takes up space in the FAC room. I'm trying to gather support for an attempt to have the developers create a parallel syntax that allows dates to be autoformatted without being linked, while retaining the current system. We hope that this will have a number of benefits for the project, including a reduction in conflict.

The discussion, draft request text, and list of supporters are here. Tony 08:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

They won't even know about it until you poke them at Bugzilla. Titoxd 08:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Well of course not. The poke is going to happen within a few days. Tony 08:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

protecting featured articles

Some/many? featured articles seem to be vandalism magnets. See 'Iranian peoples' for example. Instead of wasting all kinds of time with vandalism reverts, would it be better to give featured articles semi-protected status for, say a week, starting when they are featured and before the vandalism starts. And do this automatically, given the history of such time-wasting vandalism--not spending effort or which articles should be so protected, just do all of them. Featured articles deserve no less. Hmains 19:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Ratio of FAs with all articles

I have noticed that the ratio of Feature Articles with every article on English Misplaced Pages in increasing. About 6 months ago, 1 in 1400 articles was an FA. Now it's 1 in 1270. Good work Wikipedians! Gizza 04:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Your memory is faulty. The ratio has steadily fallen for almost 2 straight years (in September, it was roughly 1/1200). The fall is leveling off however, and by the end of the month it might have flattened out entirely. See image:De-en-exzellent-anteil.png for the graph. Raul654 06:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I don't think I've even been here for two years. What does "Anteil" mean? Gizza 07:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what antiel means, but I can tell you that graph is a graph of the percentage of featured articles out of the total number of articles, on the german and english wikipedias respectively. So, f(t) = 100 * #FAs(t)/#Articles(t). The higher the value, the better. I think soon - either this month or next month - it might turn around. Raul654 07:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm unsure whether to trust the methodology underlying that graph. The text in the related article is certainly highly conjectural. Tony 07:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The methodology consists of finding the number of featured/excellent articles, the total number of articles, and dividing the former by the latter. I don't really see how that's questionable, and in fact the data points on that graph are identical to the ones I've been manually tracking for several years now at Misplaced Pages:Featured article statistics. Raul654 08:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. I note that they seem to equate the ratio to the quality of their German WP. Ha. Um ... why do you say that the higher the value, the better? We could make all WP articles featured, and bask in it. Tony 08:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Assuming we're promoting articles on the basis of merit (as opposed to doing it just to make ourselves feel good), I think the FA proportion is a perfectly valid measure of the quality of a wiki. However, though I don't speak a word of german, but I'm by people familiar with the german wikipedia that:

1. They are quite zealous about deleting things that would be obviously kept on the english wikipedia (for example, a movie or music album must win a major award before it can have an article there). This artificially suppresses their overall article count. At the same time, I think it's reasonable to conclude this wouldn't significantly hinder their excellent article production. Taken together, this would increase the proportion of excellent articles.
2. Their standards and expectations for what constitutes an excellent article are, I'm told, much lower than ours. A featured article on en would have no problem becoming an excellent article on de, but not vice verse. Raul654 08:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually I'm pretty sure that de wouldn't accept an article from us, especially as an excellent article since I think they require all their articles, or at least their excellent articles to be in German. Don't quote me on that tho... (Yes this is a joke, I know what your trying to say) Nil Einne 12:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Re (1): it's the ge/en comparison that is shaky in methodological terms. That was bothering me. Re (2) Yep, it's obvious that their standards for the equivalent of FAs are way lower than ours, and when you look at French "FAs", you get the same impression. However, that doesn't change my opinion that the standard of writing in en FAs is still too low. Most importantly, I wonder why you believe that the FA ratio indicates overall quality; it's surely multifactorial, depending at least on the benchmark for promotion. What is "compelling, even brilliant" prose is a rubbery concept. An analogy is the supposition that good teaching is correlated with good student grades: give them all distinctions and, hey, I'm a great teacher. Tony 13:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

FA statistics

Is there somewhere within this project which lists the newest additions of featured articles by name as they are added by month? I want to accumulate a specific topic of FA articles for a project's newsletter. Also is there a similar statistics list for Good Articles as well? --Nehrams2020 04:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Featured log. Sandy (Talk) 04:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

List or Article?

If Areas of mathematics improved sufficiently, would it be eligible for Featured Article status, or would it be better suited for Featured List status? Tompw (talk) 13:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)