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Suggestion

Given yesterday's excitement, how about a subpage for editors specifically to list FAs that they believe should never appear on the front page? Debate could take place there and kept well away from Talk:Main Page and the nomination/discussion page. This would at least give Raul and Dabomb some idea of what could generate a backlash, although it would be down to their personal judgement as whether to pay heed. (Note: I was personally in favour of yesterday's front page and this suggestion in no way implies that I believe Raul654 or Dabomb87 to be anything other than great at their job).
P.S. if this is the wrong location for this suggestion then please tell me and I'll move it. I'm afraid that in 5 years I've never paid attention to the FA process. Guess it's time to change that. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹ 20:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not the wrong location to place it, but again, Misplaced Pages is not censored...except for articles about porn stars. Two articles I wrote that have appeared on the main page received complaints from parents because their children had access to the information within them: Harvey Milk and Ann Bannon. Both articles address homosexuality, but neither of them discusses sexual acts in detail. I don't know what a list of articles in which people might object to some material in them would accomplish. Should someone tell me an article I wrote was so objectionable that it does not belong on the main page, the act of objecting on those grounds invalidates their opinion for me. This is an encyclopedia and people come here to be informed. If you don't want to read about stuff, don't come to Misplaced Pages. --Moni3 (talk) 22:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I was very amused at the complaints over Fighting in ice hockey when it ran. The truth is, virtually everything will offend someone somewhere. I don't like the idea of creating a blacklist at all. Resolute 01:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I am very much opposed to this suggestion. There would end up being so many proposals across a huge spectrum (since someone somewhere is offended at even the most innocuous subject) that we would essentially narrow possible FAs down to practically nothing. My opinion is that an FA is an FA. If it has reached that status, then it should be featured on the front page. An encyclopedia is not here to protect children from adult topics which encyclopedias cover. It is up to their parents to restrict their children's computer privileges or otherwise explain things to them. Silverseren 01:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. Only criteria should be the quality of the article, and the points system found on the main page. Misplaced Pages merely reports, so having a TFA on a controversial topic should not be seen as taking any particular advocacy position. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 11:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Two featured articles 9th Feb?

Not sure if I'm asking this in the right place, but were there two featured articles yesterday? I'm sure I saw one early on about a US soldier in Apache/cheyenne wars which I followed some links from, then when I checked back later the featured article was about a hurricane, with no mention of the earlier one anywhere. I guess it's entirely possible my browser's playing up or I'm loosing my mind. Jasonisme (talk) 13:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The TFA was changed by Raul654 at 17:27, February 9, 2012 (UTC) based upon a discussion at Talk:Frederick Russell Burnham#Plagiarism and FAR?. --Allen3  13:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much, that was bugging me and I couldn't work out where to look for the one that was changed Jasonisme (talk) 14:53, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Clarify instructions?

The guidance:

"There may be no more than five requests on this page at any time for a specific date, and two requests for nonspecific dates."

may be confusing to some readers. Maybe it would be better to pull out the "at any time" to the front, since it applies to both objects (specific and nonspecific). Also some may read it as permitting up to five articles per date. How about the following:

"At any time there may be no more than five requests for specific dates, and two requests for nonspecific dates.

Thoughts? --Noleander (talk) 20:35, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a particular difference in clarity, but if you do I also don't see any problem with that edit. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

When I first read that instruction, I thought it meant there was a limit of 5 per day. I figured out that it was five total after watching the page for a few days. No big deal: if no one else sees it a problem, it can be left alone. --Noleander (talk) 03:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I was reading this recently and also found it confusing. It does sound like it could mean 5 requests for any individual day. I had to stare at the page a bit to work it out. But Noleander, your suggestion still isn't quite free from ambiguity... It needs to be really spelled out, something like: "TFA requests are split into two sections: one for non-specific date requests, and one for specific date requests. At any one time, there may be only two requests in the non-specific date section, and only five requests in the specific date section." --Lobo (talk) 11:24, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

That is fine with me. I didn't want to be too ambitious: I'm more of a slow-and-incremental kind of editor. But your wording is definitely clearer. --Noleander (talk) 12:40, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Reasoning behind limit of 7 requested articles

I've been watching this page for a little bit to try to learn how the Main Page selection process works. Can somebody explain the reasoning for limiting the requests to 5 articles that are tied to specific days plus 2 articles for unspecified days? Is it that there aren't usually more decent requests then that? Some other reason that I'm missing due to being new to this area? Cloveapple (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

There's a bit of the history at Misplaced Pages talk:Today's featured article/requests/Archive 11#Where did my nomination go?, including this diff of how the page looked with 140(!) requests. SandyGeorgia's summary of the background to 5+1 (now 5+2) arrangement was "We ended up with the system because all other attempts to help Raul with mainpage scheduling were "gamed", and the page ended up being useless." There may be other explanations elsewhere. Bencherlite 08:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that pretty much covers it, except for an update: we went from a situation of too many requests to now having too few. The nonspecific date slot is going largely unused now, so until/unless page traffic picks up again, it seems like the 5 + 2 is good. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Nobody seems to be using the two non-specific date slots, which is rather annoying since they're by far the most useful ones to me. Raul654 (talk) 15:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if that's because most editors are actually after a specific date? If that's the case, it would be good to hear-- to try to understand why Raul's attempt to give more input to the community via non-specific dates isn't being used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Some usedrs may feel that with the point system, they are more likely to get an article on the main page if it has some sort of date connection... not to mention the pride of getting your topic on the front page on some notable anniversary of the topic. A suggestion? Create a little icon (a.la the FA star) editors can stick on their userpage when they nominate and pass a TFA. I think that this would encourage a wider participation than "I'VE got an FA, so now I gotta get it to TFA". However, you also open the door to issues such as the editor that did get a topic to FA wanting to wait until a specific anniversary arrives. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  _¢ 16:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)