Wikipedia talk:Featured topics/Archive 2

message: The topics that would be most useful as featured topics are all ones that probably have wikiprojects dedicated to them.  I could imagine Featured topics such as all articles on currently functioning governments "The government of ....", or "The constitution of .....".  Like with the Wikipedia 0.5 and 1.0 efforts it strikes me that working through the other wikiprojects and using this page as a stagging point track who has the most momentum or potential is probably the best idea.  Dalf | Talk 03:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Turning their work into featured topics should be a goal for the wikiprojects.  If only they knew that we existed.  --Arctic Gnome 15:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: oops, just saw this - just said same about whales.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which reminds me - Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history is a very strong, active Project, with a gazillion FAs and a strong internal review process - have you approached them to inquire if they have any groupings of articles that might form a featured topic?  And how about all of the FAs  has put through recently in the realm of Biology and Enzymes - perhaps some of them form a group - if they don't, I'll bet he'll make one - he turns out a couple of FAs a month. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Mostly I was thinking that this project might server as a way to start a drive for some topics by finding a topic that overlaps several wikiprojects then trying to get them to coordinate for a week or a month on a small set of overlaping articles.  We could for example try and get Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries, Wikipedia:WikiProject European Union, Wikipedia:WikiProject Bulgaria, Wikipedia:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board, and the other wikiprojects for the various EU countries to all work together and try and get all of the countires in the EU as FA's.  Or even all the countries then also all the articles linked as "Main article" from those articles.  The same could be done for countries in Africa.  Basically, this wikiprject is really redundant if it only works with or on one wikiproject at a time.  We should work on ways of finding where active groups of editors who are not coordinating are working on related topics and try and get them to focus on a small grup of related articles.  Dalf | Talk 00:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seems to me that this page should work with the various wikiprojects 

message: Why do none of these featured topics actually qualify as far as Wikipedia:What is a featured topic? states? They all contain B class or lower articles in them, which the guidelines specifically state aren't allowed (This includes the Halloween series, as it is cherry picking). Is saffron the only real featured topic?--SeizureDog 10:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In some cases a B-class can be acceptable, such as in cases where a member article is on too narrow a subject to ever get featured.  Most of the time, however, you’re right, B’s shouldn’t be here.  Most of the featured topics passed before B-class articles became less acceptable.  In time they will have to be either listed for review or improved, but I think most editors have been allowing small inconsistencies while this project takes time to grow.  --Arctic Gnome 14:32, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with it. But I think the rules need to be tweaked a little. Perfection across the board is very hard to reach. I think any given topic of less than 20 articles that has at least three featured has done an impressive amount of work.--SeizureDog 14:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There have been a lot of users arguing that FTs need minimum standards.  Many were arguing for all member articles to be featured, which seems like a bit too much IMO.  As a compromise, we have to say that B-class articles are not good enough without a reasonable excuse.  --Arctic Gnome 15:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I would strengthen "a reasonable excuse" to "a exceptioally good reason". Tompw (talk) 22:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Only one 'true' featured topic? 

message: Following the  discussion in the previous section, I'm proposing somethign like User:Tompw/featured topics. The template used is at User:Tompw/sandbox7, and if you look there, you'll see the various options. (The page doesn't include the GA or FA icons; this is just me not including them to see what it would look like without, not me proposing they be abolished). It may that the image thing is a bad idea, in which case it can easily dropped or made optional.
What do people think? Tompw (talk) 23:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed new way of listing topics 

message: Should the FT box used on this page be included on the talk page of the topic's articles? (specifically, within the FT messagebox). Have a look at User:Tompw/featured topics to get some idea of what it would look like. I'm not really sure if it's worth doing or not, in truth. Tompw (talk) 17:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I had the same idea for the talk pages, and I think it makes a lot of sense.  The thing that first jumped out when seeing your demos was the colour contrast between FC orange and TF green.  They look pretty bad together.  My second observation is that it might be easier to have templates for each topic's box and just make the tag on the talk page something like  with the word "Saffron" refering to .  Such templates could also have other uses at some point.  --Arctic Gnome 19:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It sort of works.  Check out User:Arctic.gnome/FT.  --Arctic Gnome 19:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Give it a |small option (per Wikipedia:Talk page templates#Small option) and I'll like it :) —Quiddity 20:19, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks great :) —Quiddity 23:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank-you :-) Though most of the ideas (and especially the colour scheme) were Arctic Gnome's... anyone opposed to using this? Tompw (talk) 17:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thought, might it be a bad idea to make a talk page tag that is a different colour from all the other tags in use?  I like the design, but can we justify being different from the standard?  --Arctic Gnome 18:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I oppose the color change as well for talk page templates- that bland tan color is the law, unfortunately, and this would be the only one on all of wikipedia that's a different color. --PresN 19:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sigh.  You're right.  How about an all tan version: User:Arctic.gnome/FT?  It needs a bit of work, but it might do the job.  Then again, it would probably be better to just scrap the template-in-template idea and design a nice tan template from scratch.  We can leave the boxes for portals.  --Arctic Gnome 22:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FT box on talk page? 

message: I don't know if anyone brought it up, but maybe the criteria could be that all articles covered in a topic must be GA or better. That way people will start looking at groups and bringing them up to a well defined level of quality.--Rayc 23:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure that GA or better is necesarrily the way to go... As I have said before, there is an extreme disparity between B class and GA class articles. B is anything better than just a start. If we're featuring a topic and not merely a collection of articles, the topic's more trivial corners don't necesarrily need to have exemplary articles, just sufficient articles such that the comprehensiveness of data on the topic does not suffer. Currently, a featured topic only needs GA's and some FA's indiscriminatly. Because of this, a topic's most important articles can technically languish in GA status while editors struggle to get minor parts of the topic up to GA to make it a Featured topic. Wouldn't it be better if we linked the required state of the article directly to its importance? Perrhaps it's just in my particular area of expertise (ancient history), but it seems that in every topic, there will be articles with so little data on them that it's impractical to make them GA's, but the topic itself won't suffer.For example, if I tried to get my pet project, the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt, to be a featured topic, I would just have to shape up Thutmose II, III, IV, and Amenhotep II and II, and Aye to be GA's, and a few of them FAs. However, even the most exhaustive of specialist encyclopedias on Egypt don't even have an article on Thutmose II at all, and thus even having a good B article makes our comprehensiveness better than the best professional encyclopedias already. Thus, I believe the less important corners of a topic don't necesarrily need to be GA's to be comprehensive. Now, on the flip side, Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun are currently GA's, and under current rules, that's just fine. However, it would be an atrocity if these, among the most important of all figures during the dynasty, were not required to be FA's. Basically, we should link importance more explicitly with required classification. Thanatosimii 05:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I propose that we change the reqs to say that "most, if not all" articles should be GAs or FAs, especially the most important articles in the series.  Especially since we actually only have 2 topics that fulfill the current requirement.  Even the Canada Elections one would fail, and it has 14 FAs!  --PresN 06:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are underestimating the quality of the articles without a star or disk; many of them are GA or A quality.  The Canadian Elections topic, for example, is only missing Nunavut from being all featured.  The Nunavut article meets all of the FL requirements, but is too short simply because the territory is so new.  By meeting all of the FL requirements, that list would easily be GA or A if such rankings were allowed for lists.  I think similar arguments could be made for all topics with the possible exception of FFX and Halloween.  That being said, I wouldn't mind adding the qualifier "most if not all" to the requirement, but the existing requirement was a compromise with the people who wanted all member articles to be FA.  I don't think that crowd would be happy with a lowering of the requirements.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely understand why the reqs are the way they are, I was there at the time, but my concern is that the way that the requirement is written, technically the only FTs we have that meet the criteria are Saffron and Retired Pacific Hurricanes.  Canada elections has 14 Fls, but since there's no "good list" criteria, it would fail with the one non-FL.  Halloween is missing Halloween Film Series, Star Wars is missing Episode 6, and Final Fantasy Titles is missing 2,3,11 and 12.  There's a mismatch between the existing standards as written and as as used, and I think the solution is, if not to lower the standards, then to at least allow some more flexibility into the process.  --PresN 17:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll suggest it again, we should directly tie required quality to topical importance. That'll allow the kind of flexability required to make comprehensive topics. I'm not sure how that would look, but I believe that is the right road to travel down. Thanatosimii 20:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you think of a way to phrase that as official criteria that we can quote in FTC debates?  You argument makes a lot of sense, but it seems like it would be hard to make a policy out of it.  Everyone would have a different idea about how important a given article is relative to its quality.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 21:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Featured topic and good articles

message: I notice that when the new layout was implemented, the  and  stars were removed. Is this part of the new layout decision, or was it just someone couldn't be bothered to add them back in? Please let me know if there is any rationale not to have them, otherwise if I don't hear from anyone I'll add them back in. I find them extremely important to have because a "featured topic" should have an active drive towards getting all its contained articles to featured article status, and this is easiest if you can see at a glance which ones are missing. — Timwi 15:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with re-adding the FA/GA stars.  --PresN 18:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, is there some way to fix the boxes so that the text is centered regardless of whether there's a picture or not?  The Saffron topic in particular looks off balanced.  --PresN 18:33, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I think there should be some way of looking at the completeness of each topic, but I'm opposed to putting back the stars like they were before.  The new layout is very neat, and I think those stars would make it too cluttered.  Maybe we can think of another way of showing the number of FAs.  For example, we could make the parameter that adds the FT icon to the upper left corner optionally add a regular FA icon with the number of FAs.  --Arctic Gnome 21:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I like it. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 18:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. That is a much nicer looking presentation. Thanatosimii 19:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I have added the FA/GAstar templates back in and implemented the layout I suggested above. — (As an aside, I am disappointed with Final Fantasy X — with so many of them not even GA, how can the topic be featured?) — Timwi 17:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well done.  This is getting to be a very nice-looking page.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  My only concern isthat it makes A-Class articles appear inferior to the other articles in the topic, when in fact A-Class is generally considered superior to GA... I suggest putting  A   where the GA/FA star would go for A-Class. See Star Wars episodes box above for an example. Tompw (talk) 00:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necesarrily... GA is absorbed into the grading scheme used by many wikiprojects, but it quite predates that. GA articles which are rated as A class can still use the GA symbol, since they still are GA. Thanatosimii 00:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That wasn't my point... there are GAs on many wikiprojects (e.g. Maths) that wouldn't get A-Class, because they hold A-Class as being a higher standard than GA. (Though I expect some are the other way round). Anyway, I feel it is imnportant to indicate that articles which aren't GA or FA are still of a high quality. Tompw (talk) 00:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with User:Thanatosimii.  An A-class article is one that is almost ready to be nominated for FA status; by definition it must therefore be a GA and can get a GA disk quickly and without any trouble.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 01:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with putting in the "A" picture- while some projects use it as higher than GA, many projects don't use it at all, and technically you don't need to be GA-class first before A-class.  As a result, A-class means something different on every single article.  As there is no wikipedia-wide A-class rating system, it shouldn't be used in the template. --PresN 06:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

text: (&;lt--) There is a wikipedia-wide A-class rating system, and also lists can't get GA. Anyway, majority seems against me. Tompw (talk) 00:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, well, that's a ranking page. GA and FA are used by that system, however they are both also independant of it. And if there's been uproar about how easily an article can get GA, think how bad it would be if we started using a ranking that someone can just go and tag on without any criteria whatsoever. Thanatosimii 01:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, if that page counts as a Wikipedia-wide A-class rating system, then it also counts as a GA-class and FA-class ranking system.  it's just a guideline telling you what it should look like, there's no reviewing involved.  --PresN 07:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FA and GA stars disappeared 

message: In the template. Gives an overview of the overall quality. Sijo Ripa 13:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Should be shown whether articles are FA or GA

message: I almost submitted this one, before realizing that it fails the criteria 5, i.e. that at least some of the articles are FA class.  All 4 are GA though, so if anyone feels like pumping one up (probably the main article, no?) I think the topic would pass.  I'm going to talk to WP Astronomy about it.  --PresN 18:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The articles are well-referenced and well-written, and they share a common format.  However, the main article is way too short; for an article about two stars and a system, you should be able to make it long enough to be featured.  By the way, why is there no planet "a"?  --Arctic Gnome 19:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the same reason there's no planet b, c, or d- the star is Upsilon a, and the planets are Upsilons b, c, and d, as in objects in the Upsilon system a, b, c, and d. I guess everything gets lettered before they figure out what's a star and what's not.  I could be wrong though, I'm not an astonomer by any standards.  --PresN 22:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is thechnically no lower bound on article length for FA status, it just have to be comprehensive.  As to the naming Objects in a system are named starting with a for the star and then proceeding based on when they are discovered (not based on proximity to the star).  In a binary system one of the starts will be a and the other b. Dalf | Talk 02:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potential FT 

message: This is a great idea!
What happens if one of the articles in a Featured topic loses FA or GA status?  --Ideogram 12:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The topic will probably still be featured status, they don't all have to be featured; but if the change has significantly lowered the status of the overall topic, it should be listed at Featured topic removal candidates.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 17:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: I changed the boxes on the main page to templates at Wikipedia:Featured topics/boxes/topicname.  This way if we change one, we won't forget to change the other.  As templates, we can use the boxes in other places, such as on the random topic generator, which will hopefuly end up on the featured contents page.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record, these were added to the WP:FC page a few days ago. --CBD 19:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I changed the boxes on the main page to templates 

message: For lists that are over 20 articles in length, the criteria page recommends to break it up into smaller lists, but for items in a series it should be the entire series. However, that becomes impractical and quite difficult to get all of them ready. However, what if the series could get broken up by number? For example, if Presidents of the United States was a featured topic would it be wrong to just propose the first 10, or the 10 most recent, and clarify that in the nomination? We haven't run into this problem, yet, but I thought I'd bring it up. If we do it that way, it wouldn't lower the criteria any. Supplementary nominations could simply be tacked on. Keeping the example of Presidents of the United States, the first 10 could be a featured topic, then once the next 10 are ready they could be added to the same topic. Comments? Hurricanehink (talk) 18:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've thought a bit about that myself.  If you wanted to break something into subtopics, you would have to do so in a way that was not arbitrary, and that made your subtopic a unified subject that would be worth researching on its own as a group.  A good rule of thumb would be to ask yourself whether a main article could be written about the nominated group.  In the case of US Presidents, I don't think that "the first 10" would work; it's too arbitrary and we wouldn't make a main article just about those ten individuals as a group.  You could however, nominate a subtopic like "War-time US Presidents" or "Republican US Presidents".  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:23, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, I had forgotten about the requirement for main article. Alright, that works, I guess. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:39, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I would suggest breaking it up by "Party System", a conventional periodization of American politics.  Perhaps the main articles could be of the form First Party System and the Presidency etc.--Pharos 05:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smaller nominations for lists 

message: I'm putting together a couple of possible candidates for FT for the Scouting WikiProject, and come up with a question that I can't find the answer to at the moment - are categories allowed in FT, or is it just articles and lists? Horus Kol Talk 22:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Wikipedia:Featured topic criteria, "A featured topic is a collection of articles". Categoriesare not articles, so are not eligable. (Lists are a special type of article) Tompw (talk) 23:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The one category that is presently part of a topic is from one of the older topics and has be grandfathered in.  Eventually, it will have to find a main article or face FTRC.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 04:18, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories in Topics? 

message: Whoot!  Go us.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 21:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  10th featured topic 

message: How on earth can a topic with a whopping 3 articles be considered complete and without gaps? ie, saffron.Rlevse 02:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The topic covers the history, usage, and biology of the plant.  What else would you like to know about it to make it more complete?  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 03:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, go look, there's not anything else out there having to do with saffron.  It's just not the most complicated topic ever.  --PresN 04:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 3 articles

message: Has anybody thought of using this project to help create wikireaders (Wikipedia:WikiReader)? Remember 13:36, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiReader 

message: I believe the 'Canadian election timelines' topic deserves the  symbol because the one item that is not featured (List of Nunavut general elections) is not featurable due to limited subject matter.  Perhaps we could adjust the requirements for the "all-featured" status to take this into account.  Maybe we could even give the certified-complete short articles  a little check-mark.--Pharos 06:07, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I do agree that it looks a little strange with the "-" next to the nunavut timeline, especially given it's an "A class" article. But the point still remains that the whole set is NOT FA's.  Is there absolutely no way that we can get the remaining article to FA?? I don't think we should just pretend like it is an FA, that defeats the point of the  symbol. Witty Lama 00:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, perhaps we could just change the wording to "every article in the topic is a featured article or featured list (with any limited subject matter items audited individually)" or something to that effect (or perhaps this could go in a footnote).  This would be in keeping with the exemption at Wikipedia:Featured topic criteria #6 in that, despite a list that is unfeaturable due to length only, this should still be considered a "perfect" featured topic, and deserves recognition as such.  If you look at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Nunavut general elections, it really does seem that the issue is just that it's a new territory and there haven't been many elections held yet.--Pharos 01:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

text: If there are no objections, I'm going to try to implement this in the next day or so.--Pharos 05:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My worry is that as time goes by and more information becomes available on a short article, how do we decide whether to make a topic loose its topic-star until the small article is promoted?  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So far we have only one item that meets this criterion, so it's hard to make general statements, but more information becoming available would be quite a long-term process (consider Nunavut, which I don't think is holding another election till 2009).  The short article checkmark should of course be subject to review like everything else, perhaps on a regular (annual) basis or through the WP:FTRC process itself (after all, having a non-FA non-GA non-approved short article is against the criteria and one day — perhaps January 2008 —this will be thoroughly enforced for the legacy FTs as well).--Pharos 17:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Canadian election timelines' deserves the all-featured icon 

message: I would just like to let people know that there's a great potential here with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan all FAs (Wow!).  Afghanistan is a GA, Maldives is a B, and Sri Lanka is an unrated former FA candidate.  The lead article would be South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (of which these states constitute the membership), which is currently a B.--Pharos 02:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're up to it, the lead article would have to be improved to GA status, as would Maldives and Sri Lanka. The topic should be called Countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, and looks pretty close to a nomination. Hurricanehink (talk) 02:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Jumping jackrabbits batman! That sounds great. Let's see what there's to do at South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. Witty Lama 03:00, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow! This is a great proposal. Let's work on it. Cheers.--Dwaipayan (talk) 04:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You guys have my moral support. :) --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ walkie-talkie 05:42, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great potential for South Asian countries featured topic 

message: Some have expressed reservation that the Simpsons topic had one non-GA article, but now it is taken care of. However, Topics: Solar System, Michigan State University and Canadian Elections all have an article that are below standard, so I suggest that those topics be given until 1 January, 2008 to get those articles into GA status, therefore giving them time to work, but also finally closing this last quality gap for the topic. Judgesurreal777 18:23, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well as far as List of Nunavut general elections is concerned, it is an "A Class" article which is technically above GA status, so it certainly shouldn't be seen as a liability. The only reason that it isn't an FA is that there are no sources for it and it is too short (due to recent existance of the topic). Witty Lama 23:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The FT criteria allow articles that are not GA or FA in special circumstances, but I think the Canadian elections topic is the only one that can take advantage of it right now.  Getting the other ones to GA status by 2008 sounds reasonable.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: January 2008 seems quite reasonable (perhaps even more than reasonable).  At some point we're gonna need a standard for when good/featured articles are demoted too, and in that case one would think the allotted restoration time should probably be something less than a year (probably more like a quarter).  As to Nunavut and similar sitautions, see my suggestion above at Wikipedia talk:Featured topics#'Canadian_election_timelines' deserves the all-featured icon.--Pharos 01:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say, 3-4 months like you said, a quarter should be more than enough time, even if there are edit wars and other things to take into account. Judgesurreal777 05:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Remember that lists can't become Good Articles. I think that it should not be an absolute requirement that all articles be GA/FA/FL. However, I support the idea that it should be an exception, rather than the norm. Tompw (talk) (review) 15:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is why I label lists that are referenced and accurate but not FL as A-class.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

text: OK, see Wikipedia_talk:Featured_topic_criteria#Review_process, where I've formally proposed this.--Pharos 04:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, I agree with that.--Pharos 19:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I think we've agreed that the main article should indeed be Star Wars (discussion here). The problem however, is that it has recently been delisted as a GA. So, we don't need to find a lead article, it just has to get up to standard.  Witty Lama 01:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion to get all articles to GA status

message: I've now created a project page for each of the current FTs.  You can easily access these by clicking on the asterisk now in the header of each FT box.  For example, the first one is Wikipedia talk:Featured topics/2003 Atlantic hurricane season.--Pharos 06:16, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project pages created 

message: Maybe we should come up with some standards of in what order articles appear in the topic boxes.  Right now we have a few different standards: alphabetical, release date, track number, distance from the Sun.  There could be more even more; for example, most list of Canadian provinces, like in the election timelines, normally go from one coast to the other rather than alphabetically.  We could either make all topics alphabetical or come up with a few standard models for them to follow.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh, each topic is so different that it would be hard to come up with one rule for all of them.  I'm fine with just ordering them in whatever way makes sense, and if anyone disagrees, discussing it on the associated talk page.  --PresN 19:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article order in topics 

message: Forgive me if this has been brought up before, but perhaps we finally have enough featured topics to create headings of specific subjects to place them under so that the list is more organized? What would probably work best is simple headings like on the list at WP:FA, but perhaps "topics of topics" could be created to encourage the improvement of general articles and coordination between related featured topics. — Pious7 15:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One day we will, and the page will be very pretty, but I'm at a loss as how to categorize 13 FT's into sections that are all but 2 single-FT sections.  If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears, though.  --PresN 23:42, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We could break in into the broad groupings of "entertainment" (6 topics), "science" (5 topics), and "social studies" (2 topics).  However, I don't think that it will be necessary until we have a few more topics, maybe around 25.  You can find an experiment of mine with categories way back in the edit history, but when we have enough topics to make categories worth while we'll come to a consensus about how to lay out the new page.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorize the list? 

message: I noticed today that the featured topics box on Wikipedia:Featured content is broken for the newer featured lists as they do not have redirects from the old "boxes" link schema. I've gone ahead and made the change and removed "boxes" from the link. Have all the pages been moved to their new locations? Are there any other spots that might need fixed up that anyone knows of? --- RockMFR 03:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought I found all of the pages and templates that linked to the /box pages, but I guess I missed at least one.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 03:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Yeah, I took care of all the talk page templates when we did the changeover.  Sorry the Wikipedia:Featured content didn't occur to me, but it works by a mechanism rather thank directly linking, so it didn't show up in 'What links here'.--Pharos 04:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Box on [[Wikipedia:Featured content]] broken 

message: Hey, I have a question about a featured topic candidate that I may be able to submit soon. All of Wilco's studio albums (except Summerteeth, which is next on my list) have been improved to GA status, and their most recent album, Sky Blue Sky, is at FAC. Wilco discography is also a featured list. Should Sky Blue Sky pass FAC and Summerteeth be upgraded to GA, could I submit this with:
Wilco Discography (FL) (topic), A.M. (GA), Being There (GA), Summerteeth (GA), Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (GA), A Ghost Is Born (GA), Sky Blue Sky (FA)
The reason I ask is because while those are all of Wilco's studio albums, it doesn't include their live album, EPs, singles, or collaborations with other artists. Would I have to get another album to FA and submit the topic as Category:Wilco albums? Teemu08 20:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potential FT 

message: How did something with articles on one album and two songs become from a band become FT? FTs should not have obvious gaps. What about their (Slayer's) musicology, band membership, other albums, etc? What a joke. Even limiting it to one album is a stretch. Sumoeagle179 23:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If the topic is "The album 'Christ Illusion' and associated singles", then what are the obvious gaps?  If there are any please say so, but everything you've listed here is outside of the given topic- the topic isn't "everything associated with Slayer".  --PresN 06:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Christ Illusion

message: List of Final Fantasy media has recently been demoted from its Featured List status. However, it is the main article of the Wikipedia:Featured topics/Final Fantasy titles. The topic thus doesn't meet the FT criteria anymore. How much time do we have to improve the main article back to Featured List status before the topic risks being demoted? Kariteh 12:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you actually read the criteria, Rule 2 states "The topic has an introductory and summary lead article." (which in your case it is List of Final Fantasy media) but it does not say that this has to be FA status. Rule 3 states that there should be about a 1/3 of articles which are FA, and the rest GA. So as long as List of Final Fantasy media is GA status then it is fine. SpecialWindler  talk (currently ) 21:37, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's the point though- as a list, it can't be GA, it has to be FL.  --PresN 17:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I would rather see Final Fantasy (the series page) brought up to GA and used for the main article. Pagrashtak 18:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

text: And I see it's now a GA candidate. Pagrashtak 17:02, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured Topic with a non-FA main article 

message: *Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured topic nominations, modeled after Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations and Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured portal nominations.  Cheers, Cirt 19:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FYI, new list of users 

message: In addition to , which only allows a user to specify a specific topic, here is , which simply states the number of topics an editor helped promote to WP:FT.  Cirt (talk) 19:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FYI, new userbox 

message: See Portal talk:Featured content#move to portal namespace. —Ruud 12:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  move to portal namespace 

message: Seeing that it's been a few months, and that Featured Sounds has its sounds divided with half of the number of Featured topics, what about organizing the topics into sub-sections? --Hurricanehink (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I said I'd do it when we got to 25, and now we have (though four of them will soon be up for FTRC).  I've divided it into entertainment, science, and social studies.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 06:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organizing the topics 

message: If, say, all six of the Australian states' portals were featured, and the main one already is, can that qualify as a featured topic? Or do they have to be articles and lists? Daniel 09:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As impressive as a full series of featured portals is, I think that featured topics is for encyclopedia content (as opposed to navigational tools).  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 12:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can portals be a topic