Wikipedia talk:Featured articles/Archive 5

message: I posted this at the Signpost comments page the other day, they suggested I put it here:
Could I request that in the "featured content this week" section there be some details for the more notable featurings/de-featurings? I am always interested in that section and the go through and check out the recently featured articles/pix. However, I'd love it if there were a bit of context about the article's history/nomination process too. 
For example, Singapore is up for it's 5th FA nomination this week. If it does indeed get FA'd, could there be written something along the lines of:
"Singapore was also featured this week in its 5th attempt. Previous nominations failed due to insufficent bribes to the FA committee. This is the 9th article that user:singapore guy has edited to featured in the last month - a wikipedia record."
Clearly I exagerate but you get the idea. This would be much more interesting than a simple list (though I realise that it would take more time to research!)
Cheers, Witty lama 16:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be great if one of the other FA regulars could do some writing for the signpost. Raul654 17:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Back when I was doing them, I often tried to include stories like that—see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-08-08/Features_and_admins, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-08-01/Featured content, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-07-11/Features and admins. See especially the little blurbs in the first paragraph of the "Featured content" section. Is that what you are looking for?  Or more along the lines of the first section of these articles (some story related to features or admins)?  The little tidbits weren't a problem, but the story always took a long time.  Maybe I'll start making suggestions on for interesting facts on current FACs every week; that wouldn't be too tough. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 05:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greater detail in the Signpost 

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

message: It redirects to XBOX 360 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.20.72.156 (talk • contribs) 
:That is because it was vandalised. This was reverted. --BillC 00:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  perfect dark featured article 

message: Would you like to make a CSS class for the  icon, so it can be clicked and go to the article instead of the icon description page?  It would be the same as the audiolink class, like so:  — Omegatron 05:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe we will we removing the spoken article icons from this page in a few weeks when we do a redesign. Raul654 05:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  spoken icon 

message: Does anybody think that in the list of featured articles under categories, that the history category could have a tropical cyclone category separate from it. I think there are enough articles under the tropical cyclone criteria that it can be its own category. Icelandic Hurricane #12
: I'm not sure if there's enough articles to do that, but if they are recategorized, they should be recategorized under Meteorology and atmospheric sciences, and put all the weather articles there. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 23:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Category separation

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

message: I've removed all sound icons (Finally!). Please give me real reasons of why they should be in this page and what do they have to do with FA status before putting them back. CG 17:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please tell me where this action has been discussed, so that I might understand the arguments. -- Macropode 16:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Higher up on this page, in the "Interface", "Interface 2", and "Spoken icon" sections. Raul654 16:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed all sound icons 

message: I cannot find the answer to this question.  How is it decided which Featured Articles get onto the Main Page?  Is there a queue of Feature Articles that are to be put on the Main Page daily? --thirty-seven 07:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:TFA. Johnleemk | Talk 08:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Specifically, its talk page: WT:TFA. --BillC 08:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People requested them at WT:TFA and I schedule them. The queue can be found at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 2006 (or, go to hte main page and click on the archive). Raul654 15:48, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How does a Featured Article get on the Main Page? 

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

message: Would anyone have any objection if a bot was used to automatically "bold" (even though we don't use bold font in the current version anymore) articles on the main page at 0:00 UTC ? This task, as well as replacing the templace  by  on the featured article's talk page, is pretty straightforward (both manually and automatically) and it would be good to have done it automatically to make sure that the page is always up to date. The "Main page date" field on Wikipedia:Featured articles nominated in 2006 could also be updated at the same time (this is slightly more tedious to do manually, since the article could have been nominated earlier than 2006 and several pages may have to be checked before finding the corresponding entry). If the general feeling is positive, I'll ask for formal autorisation on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals. Schutz 09:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a good idea. (How often would the bot run? Daily? Hourly?) --DanDanRevolution 14:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It just needs to run once a day, at 0:00 UTC, when the article on the main page is supposed to change. If it runs more often, it won't have anything to do (although there has been a few cases lately where the article appeared earlier, see for example this comment on my talk page). Schutz 15:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

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

message: What happened to the bold text? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the section #New layout above; basically, it is still there, but by default hidden by the stylesheet. If you want to see the boldings, you have to tweak your stylesheet as explained. Schutz 15:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

text: They turned it into a CSS doodad - you have to add some lines to your [somethingorother].css to see the bold again (I must admit, I have not bothered yet).  See some discussion at #New layout a couple of sections above. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bold 

message: I think the article Alpha Phi Alpha should be under the "History" section instead of the "Education" section. Ccson
:No - a collegiate fraternity is definitely closer to education than it is to history. History is more of a catch-all for things that don't fall neatly into other categories. Raul654 05:46, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alpha Phi Alpha

message: I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'll give it go here. I'm a little confused as to why the above article was made featured today. It looked like there were at least three objections outstanding at the time the article was closed, with mine being the last one, described less than 24 hours before the article was featured. My understanding of FAC was that one significant, unadressed, actionable objection is enough to prevent the article from being promoted, but that objections can sometimes be thrown out for being trivial, subjective, or unfixable. I was sure my objections didn't fit the latter description (except for perhaps my feelings about the prose, which was a subjective call), so I was pretty shocked to see the thing closed so suddenly. Is there something I'm missing in this procedure?  Or, is there a way to contest an fac-ruling? I love Stephen Colbert, I just felt the article had some problems. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 01:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Shouldn't it be moved from the Politics section to the Media section? Isn't it more of a TV thing? Just wondering - Zone46 22:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner]] FA

message: Just a suggestion, but shouldn't Max Weber be listed under "Culture and society" rather than "Politics and government"? He is primarily known as a sociologist and then as an economic theoretician but not as a politician. Witty lama 15:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If no one objects, I will go ahead and move the article to "culture and society". Cheers, Witty lama 05:04, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Witty lama 05:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MAx Weber 

message: With nigh-on 1000 Featured articles it appears to me that some of the more populous categories should be given sub categories. This would simply make it easier to visually sort the information being presented and would only need to be added if and when there were enough articles to be considered a sub-group. For example: Education could be left as it is for the moment (there's not much there) whilst "geography", "politics" "history" and "war" (the most populous areas) could have sub categories by continent/country. Witty lama 15:37, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the idea should be examined by related portals too (War Portal is the obvious case). Personally I don't think dividing War FAs by country should be a good idea, by time would be better... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe by type (e.g. battles, people, weapons)?  Dividing by time would lead to a massive WWII cluster. Kirill Lokshin 15:47, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Or by type, but not by country or continent... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

text: By the way, this does not mean creating whole new category trees and placing multiple category tags on each Featured article as suggested above at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_articles#Categorising FAs. All it suggests is breaking up Wikipedia:Featured articles by giving subheadings for existing groupings. Cheers, Witty lama 15:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, that's what I understood too. :) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sub categories on the FA page 

message: *Is there a process for recognising improvements made to Featured Articles? I have sometimes clicked through to Featured Articles and thought that there was a lot of room for improvement. However, there is a feeling that people who read the article later, and maybe go and read the FAC page when the article passed, will think that the improved article was what passed FAC. Is there a way to resubmit a FA? Carcharoth 22:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improving Featured Articles 

message: On Wikipedia_talk:Good_articles/Nominations#Good_Article_Drive_and_other_suggestions we were discussing about Good Articles and Featured Articles.
We had the idea of placing a link to the Good Articles project page on various Featured Articles project pages. This is to give the Good Articles project more exposure. Featured Article standards are very high, and many editors want to get their articles "featured". They get disheartened when they find the odds are stacked against them. We should tell them to nominate it for Good Article, as a stepping stone to Featured Article. If an article I write becomes "good", I would want to improve it to "featured". User:Lincher encouraged me to "be the guest" and User:SeizureDog mentioned "It's a shame that Good Articles aren't mentioned at (the) Featured Articles (page)". 
I added a paragraph with links to both the Featured Articles and Featured Article Candidates page. However, I did not know how to add them to the box, and my paragraph was not too well worded. Someone removed my addition, and told me to "discuss". I left a note on his talk page, and decided to "discuss" here.
Perhaps someone could help me reword my paragraph and re-add it into the box. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Zzzzz is right.  WP:FA is one of the most popular project pages we've got, and as a result, various groups attempt to leverage it for their own purposes.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but we've got to remember the point of this page.  Just like it isn't to advertise which articles have spoken versions, it isn't to give credibility for a non-policy validation measure such as WP:GA.  Let's keep the page clean and simple, with a clear focus. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 13:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Zzzzzz, Spangineer et al. I'm getting rather tired of having to remove various projects attempting to put gratitious advertisements on this page. Don't get me wrong - related projects linking to each other is good (which is why I set up the featured-content related template at the top). On the other hand, that doesn't mean that every project on Wikipedia gets a link from here. Raul654 15:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not terribly excised either way about including a GA link, but I do want to say that I disagree with the suggestion that anyone was trying to use FA to 'advertise'.  Zzzzz spammed large numbers of pages to try and gather support in his recent crusade against what he saw as 'GA spam', and it was nothing of the sort.  GA is related to FA in much the same way as PR is, and adding a link is not at all about seeking credibility, but all about letting people know of another way to get productive feedback and critique, which many articles have now used on their way to FA status.  Also, I'm not sure I see how GA is 'non-policy'.  Worldtraveller 13:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm... I guess I'm not sure about the role of the Wikiproject.  I assumed that the two were tied together, and that adding a link here was linking to the work of a specific wikiproject.  Whether something is "policy" or not isn't particularly relevant here I suppose; FA isn't a policy either, it's an established process that exists because people use it.  In that sense, GA is similar, though not nearly as strong as FA.  There is a distinction between GA and PR though; PR is commonly considered something of a prerequisite for an FAC, but GA isn't.  I'll admit that GA is sometimes better at returning feedback than PR is, but the goals are different. Because it ranks articles, it's more of a parallel process, and less of a feed-in to FA. Anyway; I was probably a bit hasty with my initial reply—I still don't like the idea of adding the link, but it isn't that big of a deal. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 15:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The purpose of the project is just to facilitate the smooth running of the GA process.  The process could certainly exist without the project, but it is a convenient way of coordinating the efforts of the regular reviewers.  In a way it's a bit like the FA director for GAs.  I'm not fussed about the link, really, but thought it would be useful to try and clarify the distinction between GA and Wikiproject:GA anyway.  Worldtraveller 15:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

text: This page is a portal for content that has been certified as Wikipedia's best, it should not contain links to the good articles pages (or to peer review for that matter) because they are outside the scope of the page. A link to WP:GA might be more appropriate at WP:FAC. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think the link to WP:GA is appropriate here, but I don't see the problem in the link from WP:WIAFA to WP:WIAGA in the See also section, as we have a list of suggestions there. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 00:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good Article Links 

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

message: The English Wikipedia now has its thousandth FA--on Iranian peoples!
Kudos to the hundreds of editors who have made this a reality.
Now, let's see about #2000... --Slgrandson 15:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The most unbelievable thing has happened... 

message: When was the 1000th featured article? i don't remember seing it?
Dumoren 06:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sometime around 15:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  when did it happen? 

message: I know it takes a while to write it, but how long does it usually take to nominate one for featured article of the day?
Dumoren 10:47, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends.  Sometimes, they go through in a few days (5-6 is usually the minimum); other times, it takes several weeks.  Once the article is a featured article, it's possible to request that it appear on the main page on a specific date, so long as you give it at least a few week's notice.  So that's usually the time frame.  However, it often happens that new FAs don't end up on the main page immediately—those decisions are made by User:Raul654, and instead of sticking to the order of promotion, he puts things on the main page in such a way as to show the diversity of topics covered on Wikipedia. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 17:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How long does it take to nominate an article? 

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

message: Where did this section go? It seems to have disapeared. Why?
*It was moved to Wikipedia:Featured article review. Joelito (talk) 22:18, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal candidates 

message: Shouldn't Ina Garten be featured under Media instead of Food and Drink?  She's a chef, cookbook author, and hostess of a cooking show, yes, but not a beverage or a foodstuff, LOL.  Any thoughts? Air.dance 23:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you no more need to be a foodstuff to go under Food and Drink than you need to be a television set to go under Media. Biographies tend to be categorized under the subject which the person is most associated with; Food and Drink sounds right to me, but it's definitely arguable either way. Of course, selfishly, I want more FAs in the poor, sad Food and Drink category... ;-) —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 02:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bunchofgrapes took the words right out of my mouth. Raul654 02:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL, a true and salient point.  We'll leave it be, then. Air.dance 02:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ina Garten

message: I like math, so I created  as a handy way to:
*update the count, without touching the rest of the article
*update the two formulas: 1 in X and Y percent
I hope everyone likes this  (but if it's confusing or cumbersome then just revert my changes: this is a wiki! :-) --Uncle Ed 19:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not a fan for several reasons. First, it means instead of updating this page when I add articles, I have to edit a seperate articel entirely. Second, it makes it difficult to track which add/removed articles caused it to change (instead of looking at each diff, now you have to look at the diff and hte page history of the other article). I like the automated calculation it has now, but I think that's just taking it a bit far. Raul654 20:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Gotcha. Thanks. --Uncle Ed 21:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Calculations

message: How hard is it to bring an article to FA standard on other language Wikipedias? From what I gather German might be the strictest, with others like Japanese and Dutch not even requiring references. Authenticity 20:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone else will have to answer for the specifics, but in general, foreign-language Wikis seem to have lower standards for Featured Articles, because otherwise they'd have too few Featured Articles for it to be meaningful; this is comparable to the way the English Wikipedia used to have much lower standards for FA. Smaller Wikis have lower standards by necessity. I can't compare the quality of prose, but based on length alone, for example, the English Wikipedia has an 28-page featured article on Albert Einstein, the German Wikipedia has a 20-page featured article on the same topic, the Spanish Wikipedia has a 13-page featured article on the same topic, and the Hebrew Wikipedia has a 6-page featured article on the same topic. So, Featured Article standards tend to increase relative to the size and activeness of the overall encyclopedia, in order to maintain an equilibrium between too many FAs and too few. -Silence 21:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

text: The German Wikipedia requires sources, but only major ones and no inline citations at all (They have become more common recently, but articles can and will get featured without any). The quality of the articles themselves is comparable, in my opinion. -- grm_wnr Esc 21:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: German featured articles fall behind English articles. Prose is not as crisp (FAs may contain lists) and key components such as lead section and paragraph structures are not heavily enforced. One paragraph leads and stubby paragraphs in the article are still common in German FAs. In time though, they will be of comparable quality. Joelito (talk) 21:44, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Wikipedias' featured article standards 

message: I contribute to a number of occult topics on Wikipedia. I notice that this is not listed in Wikipedia's featured article as a category. How would I even go about requesting that this category be added here, so I can nominate articles? Bare in mind that I do not have any I wish to nominate at this moment, but some are coming close to being very good articles. Any help will be appreciated. Zos 18:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a bit backwards.  This page doesn't, as a general rule, contain empty categories; it would be more appropriate to discuss such a category once some articles on those topics get nominated and featured.  (You can, incidentally, nominate articles on any topic without worrying about the category scheme here; these categories are only for the purposes of organizing this page, and don't really have any deeper meaning.) Kirill Lokshin 18:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the reply. It was just an observation I was making, that there in fact does not exist a section. And if I found out how the process of categorizing worked, it would prompt me to extend an initial effort to beef up the articles I contribute to, that much faster, so I can nominate them. But my general concern is, could a category such as the one I'm speaking of be made if a designated amount of articles were nominated. I say designated, because the category for Food and Drink has 8 articles, and Psychology only has 4. So would it be safe to assume that I would have to nominate about 4-8 articles before a category such as Occult were added to the list? Or can it be done after one or two nominations? Zos 18:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cat question 

message: Featured Articles are eligible for nomination for Release Version 0.5. Maurreen 12:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (Caveat: If their subject matter is noteworthy enough.) -Silence 21:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

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

text: indeed it seems this wikiproject is a joke. Hong Kong action cinema is deemed not notable enough, yet Mariah Carey is? i suggest not bothering with it. Zzzzz 13:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Release Version 0.5

message: With all due respect for Raul654 (he has done a wonderful job until now), I think it is time to vote for a new monitor of FAs. Either that or I think we should create a FA committee. The process is becoming too big for one person to handle on their own. Hurricane Katrina was recently promoted to featured status even though it had numerous outstanding and actionable objections to its comprehensiveness and nuetrality. This is a violation of Wikipedia rules. None of the objections were even acknowledged, never mind addressed. Perhaps Raul654 is overworked due to his university studies. I am requesting a vote of confidence on him and am requesting a vote on whether a committee should be formed to replace him or at least be put in place that includes him and at least three other Wikipedians. --Jayzel 01:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that you disagreed with him over a particular promotion—and just one promotion out of hundreds, mind you—does not indicate that there's any substantial problem here which would necessitate adding more bureaucracy.  (And the actionability of a particular objection is, of course, just as subject to consensus as any other change to an article; there are plenty of things which would be superficially "actionable"—in the sense that what was requested could be performed—but which are nonetheless decidedly poor ideas, and thus shouldn't actually be implemented.) Kirill Lokshin 01:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hogwash and gobbledegook. How could there be any "consensus" when there wasn't even any acknowledgement of the objections? They were COMPLETELY ignored. Wikipedia RULES clearly state that if there are ANY actionable objections an article SHOULD NOT be promoted to featured status. This is NOT up to interpretation. The rules were completely violated. To deny this is making a FARCE of this website. I will NOT sit back and allow this. If a logical explaination is not given within 48 hours, I will personally remove the featured status of this article myself. --Jayzel 02:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Objections from WP:FAC: Strong object The "criticism of government" section does not make any reference to state and local governments or to Louisiana Governor Blanco and New Orleans mayor Nagin. In fact, both Blanco and Nagin are only referred to once in the entire article. Seems odd considering the roles they played during the hurricane. In fact, Blanco is never even referred to as a governor. In the "Looting and violence" section she is just quoted as Kathleen Blanco with no title. --Jayzel 01:52, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

text: P.S. there is no mention of the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, et al. in the "preparations" section and not a word about the state of Louisiana and Mississippi and the city government of New orleans in the "government response" section. In fact, this entire article leaves the reader to believe the Federal U.S. government controls all local, Parish, and state decision-making. --Jayzel 02:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Strongly object, per Zafiroblue05. The inadequate government response is one of the most significant aspects of Katrina, but the article does not cover it adequately. What there is seems oddly truncated. For example, it says that "video footage and transcripts ... indicate that federal officials did inform Bush and Chertoff of the danger of levee breaches", but it never said why this was an issue: that Bush had earlier claimed that no one could have predicted the breaches. Rebutting criticisms without otherwise acknowledging them could be seen as POV. In any case, the lack of coverage of controversial aspects introduces a POV in itself. Wikipedia articles should be neutral, not neutered. In my view, the article fails to meet FA criteria 2b (comprehensiveness) and 2d (neutrality). -- Avenue 12:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

text: In short, we need to ask ourselves what Katrina meant and why it matters. To be sure, asking such questions — and, particularly, answering them — delves deeply into point of view. That's why we need to present different points of view and different ideas — and balance them, order them, and present them. It's not rocket science, but it is hard work. For a few days in August, the US looked like a third world country. Does anyone reading the article gather that? zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Before you do so, you may wish to reflect on the fact that Wikipedia is not an experiment in rule making, and that promotion to FA status is—and has always been—at the discretion of the FA director. Kirill Lokshin 02:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And I'll remind you, there is no written law about who the FA director is. --Jayzel 02:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No written law is required, as there is no substantial opposition to the status quo. Kirill Lokshin 02:55, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text: We'll see about that. Consensus determines everything here. It is up to the masses to determine whether we should have a vote to remove Raul654. Your opinion is just one of many. You guys have 48 hours to give a logical explaination for violating Wikipedia rules. Regards, --Jayzel 03:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We'll see about that. Where is the consensus that we have 48 hours? Bishonen | talk 03:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Threats—particularly threats that you have no power to act upon—are unlikely to get you anywhere. Kirill Lokshin 03:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kirill has a point. Ultimatums are unproductive and generally tend to be ill recieved. Raul654 02:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time to vote for a new monitor of FAs 

message: Vote here. --Jayzel 03:23, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: m:Voting is evil. And apparently you decided not to wait for the results of this poll. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 03:34, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Serious, but not unconstested, objections. It's after all, up to Raul to decide whether pages should be promoted. Titoxd(?!?) 03:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See you at the arbitration committee tomorrow. --Jayzel 04:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Looking for consensus whether Hurricane Katrina shoud be in the featured article list 

message: The Template:Featured has been modified so that the diff in an article's history at which point it received featured status can be accessed via a link on the header. This will allow for comparison and contrast between the current version of the article and the version which received featured status. An example of how this works can be viewed here.--Conrad Devonshire Talk 19:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This should have been done from the beginning! I thought there was a reason for not doing this, so I never bothered to do this myself. I shouldn't have fooled myself into believing that there was no room for improvement... Carcharoth 14:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But congratulations for doing this in such an elegant way! Just adding a version number. Really good. Now, is there a way to link to both the original FAC-version of the article and a newer version of the article if the article gets re-accredited through FAC again after major updates/rewrites? Carcharoth 14:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Means of identifying at what point in an article's edit history it received featured status 

message: The featured article calculation at the top of the article is giving an error.
Seems to be working now.
:No it isn't. The number has been manually placed. The expression is still gives an error. Joelito (talk) 16:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  expression error at top of article 

message: I am still scratching by head a bit over bolded titles.  They are the ones that have been on the main page?  Or there was some sort of change?  Explaining the logical distinction on the project page would be a big plus for me.  Thanks, GChriss 07:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Until about 2 months ago, we bolded articles that appeared on the main page. However, aesthetically, as the number of FAs increased (and as the proportion that had appeared on the main page increased), the bolding looked uglier and uglier. So we switched to the current layout, which gives people the option of turning the bolding on or off (the default is off) - bolding still indicates which ones have been on the main page, but now people aren't forced to see it if they don't want to. Raul654 18:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is it they say about the best-laid plans? They've been bold now since June 28. Fixing.... —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 18:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

text: So...what to do if I want to see bolding?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:16, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Add "span.featured_article_metadata#has_been_on_main_page{ font-weight: bold; }" (without the quotes) to your css file -- usually monobook.css. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 18:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tnx :) Perhaps a note on how to do this should be added to the top of this talk page?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boldings Unclear 

message: I was planning on giving the FA page a facelift to look similar to the WP:GA page.  Including collapsible sections, icons, sub-categories, and such.  However, before making such a change and spending the time to do it, I wanted to run it by the talk page so it did not get quickly reverted.  Does this sound like a good idea? Morphh 14:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been suggested in the past but hasn't gotten broad support.  Subcategories and such are harder to maintain, icons are sometimes thought overly cutesy, and collapsible sections aren't as user friendly.  Right now I think we're doing OK—maybe once we get up to 1500-2000 FAs we'll really need to start considering alternatives. --Spangineeres (háblame) 14:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the collapsible menus are more user friendly then the mess of text presented.  The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to organize.  We would not have to put them all in sub-categories right away.  We could have an uncategorized sub-section at first which would allow editors to ease into it. Morphh 15:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict) Bad idea, in my opinion. The GA page is utterly impossible to navigate, since it has (a) no TOC (and it wouldn't work with collapsing sections even if one was present), and (b) too many sub-categories, often with quite bizarre nesting. The only point which I think might be non-controvesial would be icons, but that's merely an aesthetic change (and perhaps not a particularly useful one, to boot). Kirill Lokshin 15:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I find the GA article much easier to navigate then the FA article.  The FA just looks like a mess of text to me and I find it more difficult to find stuff.  I also like the idea of replacing the TOC (which would be replaced by the side icon/menu) with "Recently listed feature articles". Morphh 15:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I like this idea, this is a rather public page, and public likes eye-candy.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: You can see how it would look at WP:GA. Worldtraveller 16:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Subcategories shouldn't be that much of an issue - the GA reviews manage it ;-p  In addition, most of the FA articles for review will already be GA articles and subcategorized. Morphh 03:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

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

text: Collapsible sections are awful. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 18:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure about the GA format, but I would like to see subcategories. Maurreen 02:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The first thing that needs to be looked at is the subgroups having Wayne Gretzky with Bulbasaur really doesnt make any sense.  Really before starting to create a format the appropriate subgroups need to created from there whats needed to best display them. Gnangarra 02:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm quite opposed to the collapsible sections; it severly limits accessiblity, among other issues. I navigate primarily with the keyboard, and I have a large high-resolution screen; it is quite annoying for me to have to click all the links on the right edge (also, on my screen, the "show" text is so far away from the titles that it's easy to miss it--for some time, I thought WP:GA was just a skeleton page, wondering "when are they going to add the article titles?"). Furthermore, you can't do a internal page search unless the relevant section is showing, which irritates me further. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your latter point regarding searching is valid. However, your previous argument about using your keyboard primarily and your hi-res monitor puts you in the minority. Collapsable sections, if done right, can be very beneficial especially as the number of FAs grows.--NMajdan•talk 17:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Facelift

message: Have a look at this edit. A basic and easily checkable fact in the Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom article (the salary) was not updated. The article appeared on the Main Page a few days ago. This sort of inaccuracy is the sort of thing that justifiably gives Wikipedia a bad reputation. What is the point of saying that our articles can be more up-to-date than others, when no-one checks to see if they are up-to-date? Can processes be put in place to stop this happening again?
I've raised this at several locations before realising which was the obvious location (here), and I was told by one person that Peer Review and the FAC process should have caught this error. Should it have done so? I went and looked up when this article attained featured status, and found that it was back in October 2004 (see here). It seems that this is more a case of a lack of correct "future-proofing" writing. ie. Write "as of 2006", rather than "this year", etc.
So maybe just a warning for editors in general, and FAC regulars in particular, to be more alert for this sort of thing? Thanks. Carcharoth 14:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fact checking featured articles 

message: I'm thinking if the day's featured articles should be protected because these featured articles are highly visible to anyone and can vandalize it? I think this should reduce vandalism congestion. My decision is to temporarily protect featured pages of the day for the day so there's not much vandalism to that page. --Bigtop (tk|cb|em|ea) 07:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see User:Raul654/protection. Flcelloguy (A note?) 07:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected? 

message: I noticed the German wiki has a category for Featured Articles. Why not this one? Would it be difficult to implement? Xaxafrad 05:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is implented using hte talk page template - :Category:Wikipedia featured articles Raul654 05:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  FA category? 

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

message: My revert was based on the vandalised page, not the already-reverted one. Will self-revert back to corrected page. Nysin 18:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or not. Nysin 18:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ehh, already got it. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflicting Reverts