Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/Archive 16

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See Wikipedia:Today's featured article/TFAs in 2021

Some numbers and random thoughts.

• The most viewed TFA in 2021, United Airlines Flight 93, blew the rest out of the water on pageviews. For the 20th anniversary of 9/11, that's not surprising. But it does give us an indication of where TFA can go when there is extreme reader interest (half a million page views). I'm unsure whether to be proud of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United Airlines Flight 93, or horrified that it did so well without having been re-reviewed at WP:URFA/2020A. But it does also give us an idea of the utility of making sure our very old and old FAs are kept up to snuff.
  • Reinforcing that, another old FA landed in the top 10, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Muhammad al-Durrah incident/archive1 with almost 100,000 pageviews.
• In the top 25 most viewed articles (representing a 70,000 pageview cutoff), the categories of FA that drew reader interest show pretty good variety:
  1. History (4)
  2. Warfare (4)
  3. Art and architecture (2)
  4. Culture and society (2)
  5. Health and medicine (2)
  6. Media (2)
  7. Music (2)
  8. Politics (2)
  9. Transport (2)
  10. Biology (1)
  11. Engineering & technology (1)
  12. Royalty (1)
• In the 25 articles that received the least pageviews (representing less than 22,500 views), there is more concentration than found in those most viewed:
  1. Biology (8)
  2. Sport and recreation (6)
  3. Meteorology (5)
  4. Geography and places (2)
  5. Media (1)
  6. Music (1)
  7. Politics (1)
  8. Transport (1)

So, anything that can be done to increase the pool of FAs that most interest our readers may help fuel the upward progress of Featured articles. I put this here in relation to the discussion just above it; the TFA Coords can only run what we've given them, but maybe we can find ways to improve what we give them (that's what WP:URFA/2020 is hoping to do, but it would be grand if we could minimize reliance on re-runs). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:40, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

I note that if you had made it a top 40, that would have included an additional five warfare articles. It seems that our readers like (reading about) warfare. Does that mean that we should feature a higher proportion of military articles as TFAs? Gog the Mild (talk) 20:58, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

I was thinking of making the cutoffs around standard deviations, but then ... got lazy. With the top article blowing out the average, I would have wanted to calculate it around including Flight 93 and not including Flight 93. I wonder what the top and bottom 50 would show? But to your question, do we have a lot of interest in our Warfare articles because they have garnered a reputation for being so good, or is there more to it (meaning, the typical profile of a MilHist buff on the internet, maybe more inclined to read such articles??). Whatever it is, I find it very convenient when what he have to offer in the FA pool aligns so well with what our readers want to read ... at least in the case of Warfare! Of course, selfishly, I was happy to see medical articles landing in the top, but I seem powerless to help us get more of those. They are too hard to create, and there are too few editors in medicine just trying to hold the line of basic important accuracy. But Health and medicine was once a growing percentage of FAs :( SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:08, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

PS, maybe some brainstorming about how to generate more high-view FAs would help. We used to have a ton of fun at FAC, working together on collaborations like Ima Hogg. And the high-view saves at WP:FAR seem to be increasing now, possibly because of WP:FASA (which ... HINT !! ... no one is voting on!). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

• I see I'm a week late to the party, but I'd like to thank the people who put that list together. I'd love to see any more analysis if we have statisticians in our midst who enjoy picking out themes from things like this. I'm astonished that a couple of my police shootings ranked so highly (Death of Mark Saunders was #11, Chandlers Ford shooting was #53) considering those events are relatively obscure, though a couple of my war memorials were not as well-received. It's perhaps not surprising that some of the less well-performing articles are on fairly niche subjects that perhaps don't attract the depth and breadth of interest, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't run them. After all, popularity is not a measure of importance. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:46, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• On the opposite spectrum compared to Sandy, my TFAs scored around 40-50k; at least they're not wasting TFA time, but it's still a far cry from the top 25 list. I'm trying to think of possible solutions, but it's a real brain teaser. We have to find a balance of getting more and better FAs, but I don't want to hurt the writers of the various underrepresented FA categories just because people don't want to read about them. In my opinion, we should be looking for ways to get the people to read what we put up there, not just give them what we want. Panini! • 🥪 13:17, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
• We coordinators are responsible to the TFA community, rather than to the general public, and I see our primary goal as showcasing the featured work of our writers. That being said, if it can be done in a way that's going to get that work more widely read, I'm all for it.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:16, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed. Though it would be interesting to know whether low readership indicates an esoteric subject of limited interest (not that that's in any way a bad thing) or that we're not doing a good job of capturing interest that could be there. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:13, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

couldn't find an answer anywhere, though—what's the upshot in having a bot do all the archiving instead of the FA coordinator with a twinkle-like gadget? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 11:02, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

why should the Coords have to do more work, when the work the bot does is just the bookkeeping after the Coords have made the promote/archive decision? [1] Perhaps I am misunderstanding your question, as I don't know why you are asking a WP:FA question on a TFA page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:24, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I mean, it seems like less work to me? It would seem easier to click a button that leaves your comment and archives the nomination and then also does all the other stuff, instead of doing the first two manually and waiting for a bot to sort out the rest. Oh, and my apologies for the wrong venue. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 18:55, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, that "button" has to be maintained, and then the Coords would also each individually get all the maintenance questions, so if they were to have to take it over, there's more to it than just pushing a button. Centralizing the work to a bot also puts the maintenance burden, and responses to queries, on the bot operator instead of the Coords. (No problem about the wrong venue; I only raised it as I recognized I may not have correctly understood what you were asking.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: all right, fair enough :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 02:48, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020 is a systematic approach to reviewing very old (VO) and old (O) featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards. The goals are to:

• Review and encourage tune-ups on mostly compliant FAs that don't need a Featured article review (FAR)
• Identify deteriorated older FAs to submit to FAR
• List older FAs that are ready to be today's featured article (TFA) and help the TFA Coords check older FAs before running on TFA.

Progress

Monthly progress is recorded at this page. Since URFA/2020's launch, with 4,526 FAs needing a review:

• 245 FAs were Delisted at FAR (224 VO and 21 O).
• 184 FAs were deemed Satisfactory or declared "Kept" at FAR (123 VO and 61 O).
• FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs to 67%, with 91% of articles listed at URFA/2020 needing reviews.
• 79 editors made at least one notation in WP:URFA/2020, while others nominated, reviewed, and edited articles at WP:FAR.

These numbers do not encompass the full activity of URFA/2020. Once three experienced FA reviewers have deemed an FA 'Satisfactory' (not needing a FAR), it is moved to 'Kept or FAR not needed'. At quarter-end, hundreds of articles have received one or two 'satisfactory marks' or have been noted as having minor issues that should be addressed, work underway, or similar. An additional 155 articles were given notice of the need for a featured article review, and 34 were at FAR.

In January, the Signpost ran an article about the URFA/2020 project called "Forgotten Featured". In February, the project targeted articles that had two "Satisfactory" notations to find an editor to note the third satisfactory. Editors who nominated these articles for FAC were contacted on their talk page and invited to note if they were still updating and maintaining the article.

Project initiatives

The project's initiatives for 2022 are:

• Clear and complete the 2004–2006 list. Editing, reviewing or nominating at FAR to finish up these very oldest reviews would be most helpful.
• A notation for every article in the 2007 list.

How to help

If we continued this quarter's trend, it would take more than ten years to review the remaining FAs, which is why we need your help! Here are some ways you can participate:

• Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
• Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020.
• Nominate an article at FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed.
• Edit and review articles at FAR: FARC/FAR is a collaborative process. We encourage all editors to WP:BEBOLD and fix the concerns posted at FAR. We also need reviewers to list concerns so editors know what to fix. If no one is working to restore an article listed in the FARC phase, enter a "Keep" or "Delist" declaration.
• Review articles at URFA/2020: Experienced FA writers and reviewers are encouraged to help by marking articles as 'Satisfactory' or posting notices for FAR. Inexperienced reviewers are also needed; articles far from meeting the FA criteria can be noticed and eventually posted at FAR. This allows experienced editors to focus on articles not egregiously failing the FA criteria and allows more articles to be nominated at FAR.
• Organise "review-a-thons" with editors and Wikiprojects: Are there editors in your WikiProject that can help? Organise a contest with your Wikiproject to review and improve your project's FAs. The contest can even hand out barnstars and awards! Please post at WT:URFA/2020 if interested in hosting an event.

Older reports

The year-end 2021 report is here.

Other quarterly reports are here.

Feedback If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/1Q2022. Z1720 (talk) 20:47, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

May be found here. Scheduling will begin around 5 May. Comments welcome.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:19, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Editors are invited to comment at WT:POTD#Coordinating POTD and TFA. Levivich 05:12, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020 is a systematic approach to reviewing very old (VO) and old (O) featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards.

Progress

Monthly progress is recorded at this page. Since URFA/2020's launch, with 4,526 FAs needing a review:

• 280 FAs were Delisted at FAR (255 VO and 25 O).
• 202 FAs were deemed Satisfactory or declared "Kept" at FAR (133 VO and 69 O).
• FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs to 66%, with 89% of articles listed at URFA/2020 needing reviews.

URFA/2020 reached a milestone when there were fewer than 100 articles promoted from 2004–2006 that needed reviews. Thank you to all the editors who helped with this task. The group is focusing our efforts into finishing those years by the end of the year, and would appreciate it if reviewers could evaluate these articles.

How to help

If we continued this quarter's trend, it would take more than ten years to review the remaining FAs, which is why we need your help! Here are some ways you can participate:

• Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
• Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
• Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed.

Older reports

The year-end 2021 report is here.

Other quarterly reports are here.

Feedback If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/2Q2022. Z1720 (talk) 19:25, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Main Page#About FAs (please confine commentary to there to keep it all in one place). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:32, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Formal proposal to add About link to TFA blurb

Please discuss at Talk:Main Page#Formal proposal to add "About" link to TFA blurb on main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:09, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Wehwalt for the proposal, I created Wikipedia:About Today's featured article. I think it is supposed to have some kind of move protection? I didn't want to add it to {{FApages}} because that is already so long, but I am otherwise unsure how to integrate this new page to FA pages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:32, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

A tentative list of TFAs for September 2022 may be found here. Further TFA/R nominations for September are still welcome, though. Wehwalt (talk) 12:19, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

@Wehwalt: - I've listed some concerns with Iridium at Talk:Iridium#FA concerns. Hopefully someone can fix it up before TFA time (beyond my ability/knowledge), but it does seem to show a decade's worth of unmonitored accretion of low-quality material. Hog Farm _Talk 03:31, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Oops, I posted that over at the September page, Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/September 2022. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

@WP:TFA coordinators From pages 35 to 37 of the Unused templates report there are maybe hundreds of that should be removed from the report and be marked as transclusionless. The report has gone haywire of late and makes it difficult to navigate easily. If someone can add a fix to this, please do so. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

@WikiCleanerMan: - Presumably these can all just be ignored? Almost all of them appear to be subpages of Template:TFA title, which looks like a moderately useful template. As there are literally several thousand of these old subpages, going through and tagging all 4000 of them as transclusionless seems like a colossal waste of editor time when the only real benefit gained is removing some spurious entries from a humongous database report that is absolutely loaded with spurious entries. The cost-benefit relationship for the fix here is negative. Hog Farm _Talk 23:54, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

They can for sure. But when trying to look through to reduce the backlog, the inclusion of these makes the list of pages for the report unnecessary long and before the inclusion of TFA and other groupings of project-related templates, the report stopped being contained on a single page. Check out Wikipedia talk:Database reports for the respective section where I started the original discussion. But there should be a way to mark them transclusionless without going through all of them. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:02, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

@WikiCleanerMan: The "templates" are simply the titles of the articles for each date. Adding additional wikitext might break code that reads the content of those pages. Ideally that report would have a way to specify title patterns to be ignored instead of trying to get everyone to add a category to everything. Anomie⚔ 14:15, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

@WikiCleanerMan: Looks like all your problems are because people have been screwing around with the code generating the report. Special:Diff/1094301933 (June 21) changed it to output in multiple pages. Then Special:Diff/1099233551 (July 19) removed a bunch of categories it had formerly looked at. The addition of all the TFA title templates came after Special:Diff/1103682761 (August 10) removed all the existing title-prefix exclusions. So, yeah, when someone goes and deletes all the existing exclusions then obviously you'll get a bunch of junk in the report. 🙄 Anomie⚔ 14:34, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Anomie. I'm pretty sure we agree that the pages are junk, so why keep them around? What is the value of Template:TFA title/January 4, 2020? These unused templates are being reported as unused templates because they are in fact unused. We previously made specific exceptions based on title when generating this report and I personally no longer want to support such exclusions.

In the few cases I've checked (e.g., Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:TFA title/January 4, 2019 or Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:TFA title/February 3, 2018 or Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:TFA title/March 31, 2017), they have exactly one incoming link from this unused templates report and no transclusions and no page views. Is there any reason these pages are still needed?

WikiCleanerMan, please stop spreading this conversation to more talk pages, somehow we're up to four of five separate discussions now. And please stop saying the bot is malfunctioning or has "gone haywire"; the bot is accurately reporting that certain templates are unused. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:55, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

These pages seem harmless, and deleting them would serve no purpose. I suggest to create a more usable fork of the report so pages that should be ignored can be ignored. —Kusma (talk) 15:10, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Happy to see you around these parts, McBride. I know people occasionally used pages like Template:TFA title/January 4, 2020 as a double-check on what title the bots were using for that day's TFA. Whether they're still used as a double-check, I have no idea. - Dank (push to talk) 15:21, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, you too. :-) It seems like it would be easier and more accurate to check Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 4, 2020.

Kusma: Deleting the pages would de-clutter the template namespace, which is intended to be used for templated content. It would also reduce the size of the unused templates report by removing unused templates. If nobody can find a reason to keep these pages around, deletion is the most appropriate course of action. If you would like to volunteer to write or maintain a database report, we're always looking for volunteers. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

"De-cluttering the template namespace" is among the lowest priority activities I can think of around here (and these pages are neatly sorted, all of them subpages of a given page, so they can be easily ignored), but to each their own I guess. We have always used the template namespace for large amounts of things that are not templated content (Main Page stuff etc.) and if that is inconvenient now we should rather move all of this stuff out of the template namespace than make the history unreadable for non-admins and difficult to use for admins. —Kusma (talk) 17:06, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: You're incorrect about us agreeing about the pages being junk, the only "junk" is your report uselessly including them. The pages exist so that tools can easily get the title of the day's featured article, without having to parse whatever random wikitext is in pages like Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 4, 2020. This includes user scripts and external tools that won't show up as transclusions. Anomie⚔ 12:10, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm wondering if all this is a bit outside of what TFA coordinators usually do.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:44, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

It is. Further discussion should be at Wikipedia talk:Database reports I guess. —Kusma (talk) 10:43, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi, please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TFA Protector Bot 3. Legoktm (talk) 02:07, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

As an update, the RfC approved a 30-day trial of bot semi-protection. The current proposal is to run the trial over 60 days, with it semi-protecting every other day to give us a reasonable sample of data to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of the protection. If you have any comments/concerns/etc. please leave them on the linked BRFA. Thanks! Legoktm (talk) 06:02, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

If her funeral is 18 September as seems likely, are there views about re-running her article as TFA on that day? In which case Rotavirus would be moved from 18 September to 27 September and Boroughitis (I am the FAC nominator on that one) would be bumped, at least for this month. Since all three articles are reruns, we stay within the "no more than two a week" limit on reruns. If the funeral is another day, it would become more complicated.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:50, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Pinging User:Graham Beards who was the nominator for Rotavirus, for their views. I'll also put a note at the Elizabeth II article.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:52, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Whoops. I should ping Graham Beards and also DrKay.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:07, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Given the extraordinary circumstances and having a well-maintained FA on the subject, I'd support the proposal, as I would for any other FA whose subject is newsworthy and subject to intense interest. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:45, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I like this plan, unless DrKay says it's not in shape to run (which I doubt); this is just the way TFA should be used and I'm glad to see the flexibility! I don't think Graham will care as Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Rotavirus was from Z1720--probably for diversity, nothing special about the date. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:20, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I nominated rotavirus for a non-specific date. I'm fine with QEII bumping rotavirus either to later in the month or to another month. Z1720 (talk) 00:22, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to note here that running U.S. Route 8 on September 26 is not the best idea. As I noted on my talk page when it was scheduled, I will be out of town starting September 22. I am attending an event at a resort without WiFi or other Internet access. I will be returning home just a few hours before the article falls off the Main Page, and then immediately leaving town again the next day through the 29th. This would be a good opportunity to bump this article out of the schedule since I'll be unable to respond to any questions related to it for a week. Imzadi 1979 → 16:14, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Imadzi1979. Could you do it September 18?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:19, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Oops, blew the ping. Imzadi1979.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:20, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

That's not a lot of time now to go through the article, polish up the blurb with more interesting details, etc. I mean, the article should be ready for TFA, but I haven't read through it fully in quite a long time to make sure. Imzadi 1979 → 02:42, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm also seeing suggestions the funeral could be 19 Sept. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:39, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm thinking it might be. I suspect we'll know in a day or two.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:46, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm happy with any decision at this sad time. Graham Beards (talk) 07:00, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Wehwalt, for this -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 07:05, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Seems a great idea to me Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:56, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd also support Her Majesty running as TFA on the date of her funeral. The whole world will stop and watch the funeral of such an influential and worldwide respected Monarch. God save the King. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 08:00, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Let’s do it. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:24, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

TFA on funeral day is a nice idea, even if it will not create the 8-million-readers+ interest of ITN yesterday. Let's write a blurb, and find a different image. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:41, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Maybe File:Elizabeth II greets NASA GSFC employees, May 8, 2007 edit.jpg? It's a FP on the EN wikipedia. Sea Cow (talk) 15:27, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks all. Once we have a confirmed funeral date, I'll do the necessary and we'll move forward. Does anyone want to draft a blurb?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:02, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Wehwalt there may be the beginnings of one at Talk:Elizabeth II#An event to come, which may need work on, now. (Hard to tell.) Unless he disagrees, and to avoid the "too many cooks in the kitchen", I suggest we give DrKay the first go at it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Due to the fact that she is a very well-established world head of state with a well-written and maintained FA, I support this. Also, it was gonna get a second TFA sooner or later. @CLYDEFRANKLIN 22:24, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I've never participated in TFA discussions before and came here from article talk page just to say that I really appreciate the idea to run it as TFA on her funeral day. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 14:46, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Wehwalt it's 19 September.[2]. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. It's done. I did a placeholder draft to have something to put in the slot here.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:42, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Please adjourn further discussion to the TFA blurb's talk page.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:08, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Meskel will be observed on September 27. Please nominate On this date section. The Supermind (talk) 07:06, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

That is not a featured article, so it is not eligible to be "Today's Featured Article". However, it is in queue at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries to appear in the "On this day" section. --RL0919 (talk) 07:14, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020 is a systematic approach to reviewing very old (VO) and old (O) featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards.

Progress

Monthly progress is recorded at this page. Through the end of the third quarter 2022, with 4,526 FAs needing a review:

• 324 FAs were Delisted at FAR (289 VO and 35 O).
• 210 FAs were deemed Satisfactory or declared "Kept" at FAR (140 VO and 70 O).
• FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs to 65%, with 88% of articles listed at URFA/2020 needing reviews.

URFA/2020 reached a milestone with less than 4,000 articles needing review. Thanks to all of the editors who have helped with this task.

Year-end goals

• Focus on finishing up reviews of 2004–2006 FA: The number of the very oldest FAs needing review has been reduced from 225 to 77; finishing these up by year-end is a goal.
• Focus on reviewing 2007 FAs: The number of the 2007 FAs needing review has been reduced from 659 to 487; please review an article from that group towards a goal of reducing it to 450 by year-end.

How to help

If we continued this quarter's trend, it would take more than ten years to review the remaining FAs, which is why we need your help! Here are some ways you can participate:

• Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
• Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
• Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed. Sometimes nominating at FAR draws additional editors to help improve the article that would otherwise not look at it.

Older reports

The year-end 2021 report is here.

Other quarterly reports are here.

Feedback If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/3Q2022. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:52, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

This may be very premature, but I'd like to potentially eye up running this article (which was promoted to FA today) on 19 September 2024. That will be the 50th anniversary of the completion of the road. I guess that just means not running it before then, and then making sure I nominate it at the appropriate moment when schedules are being considered.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:41, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and reminding us when one of us schedules it, not remembering your interest. An entry at WP:TFAP doesn't hurt, either. Congratulations!--Wehwalt (talk) 17:55, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

LOL! I have already provisionally scheduled it for November. I'll swap it out. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:08, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Ha, that's funny. We're both very quick off the mark before the FA star had even hit the article! Anyway, the above is not an absolute must - if it helps you guys make a balanced set then I don't mind it going in November either...  — Amakuru (talk) 21:19, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

(Sorry, I don't mean a balanced set, that's DYK jargon! I mean having a good range of topics on different days I suppose)  — Amakuru (talk) 21:20, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

No moss gathered here! No worries, I swapped it for some boring US interstate. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:25, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

A tentative list for December 2022 may be found here. This is not intended to cut off TFA/R nominations, but simply to show the state of play and allow for comments in plenty of time before the dates in question. Wehwalt (talk) 07:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

A tentative schedule for March 2023 is available here. Comments are very welcome. This in no way cuts off further nominations for March at TFA/R. Wehwalt (talk) 00:00, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I just found out that another editor made last minute changes to the blurb of The Holocaust in Greece and to the first sentence of the article, which are not an improvement in my view. The blurb is now on the main page and protected so I would appreciate if an admin (possibly Gog the Mild or Wehwalt) could address the situation and revert if appropriate. It would also be great if you could look at the article and revert if you see fit to do so. (t · c) buidhe 06:57, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I've reverted the blurb on the technical ground that the first link in the blurb must be to the TFA. The question of the first sentence of the article is something that should be worked out by normal editing processes.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:11, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Main Page § Paintings of the same subject scheduled for TFA and PotD on 25 March. Ham II (talk) 20:36, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I've always been opposed to using Wikipedia in general and TFA to follow a religious liturgical calendar. I'd be more than happy to run the Memling any other time of the year. The van Eyck Annuciation is a better image, thus understandable (I suppose) for that day. But that article hasn't really been worked on, thus the discrepancies between the two that are mentioned in that thread. If the @WP:TFA coordinators can find something else to run on the 25th, fine by me. Victoria (tk) 20:57, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

If we're to remove the Annunciation article, what I would probably do as the scheduling coordinator for March is move Jim Lovell from the 24th to the 25th to be on his actual 95th birthday (yes, he's still alive) and put an article by an editor who is no longer active for the 24th. Perhaps a second appearance for Nelson's Pillar. I'd like to ping the principal editors of the Lovell article, Hawkeye7 and Balon Greyjoy for their views. Of course, anyone else is free to weigh in. Wehwalt (talk) 22:55, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Running Jim Lovell for his 95th birthday is a lovely idea. Since the van Eyck Annunciation has been scheduled for the POTD, let's do that. Problem solved. The Memling can wait for another year or go another time - Christmas time perhaps? Victoria (tk) 23:04, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Clever. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:07, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, looks good to me Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:46, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:03, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Can I just say that if this isn't next year's April Fools article, I'll be disappointed? Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 01:15, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

A bit early, but June's tentative schedule can be found here. I am by no means cutting off fresh TFA/R nominations or other suggestions; the schedule is always subject to change. Formal scheduling, as usual, will not occur until May. Wehwalt (talk) 14:08, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• Please see WP:VPM#How much coronation coverage is appropriate? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't know anything about how to get an FA on the main page, so I would appreciate it if someone could nominate this unique article for the main page: Douglas Albert Munro. 70.161.8.90 (talk) 22:35, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I see that it ran as the TFA for October 11, 2019. Articles may run twice, but they must be at least five years apart. Accordingly, it can't run on the page again until October 11, 2024. If you come here again then, and remind us of your interest, it is likely that we'd be willing to accommodate you. Wehwalt (talk) 22:40, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi all. I became mostly inactive at TFA 20 months ago, but I'm feeling better now, and looking to get more active. Feedback is always welcome. Good to be back. - Dank (push to talk) 12:55, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I’m sorry to hear you were unwell, Dank. Good to hear that things are going well again. Welcome back! Schwede66 15:37, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The TFA coordinators would like to notify and ask the community’s approvals of some changes in our lineup. First, Jimfbleak, after many years of service to the community as a TFA coordinator, has decided to step back from the role effective at the end of July. I’m sure the community will join us in thanking him for all his hard work over the years. This leaves only one active coordinator, myself, but Dank, our longtime colleague who had to step back due to health reasons, has agreed to return, and we’d like the community’s approval to reinstate him as a coordinator. Also, we’d like to formally make Gog the Mild, who for some time has been doing the work anyway, a coordinator. I will be remaining as a coordinator.

To summarize, we’d like the community’s approval of changing from a coordinator lineup of Jimfbleak and Wehwalt to Dank, Gog the Mild and Wehwalt, effective 1 August 2023.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:44, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

A very tentative list for September may be found here. By no means am I cutting off TFA/R nominations or other suggestions, I'm simply posting it early because of upcoming travel. Scheduling should not begin until close to the end of the month. Please leave comments at the foot of the page I've posted. Wehwalt (talk) 01:49, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi all, thanks for your support. I'll be scheduling October. It's true, I still don't know as much as I'd like to about TFA, so any help with vetting or improving any of the TFA articles will be much appreciated. There's one TFA rerun proposed so far at the pending page for October, and I'd like to propose four two more: The Smashing Pumpkins for late in the month, and Maple syrup and Medieval cuisine for Canadian Thanksgiving and the various Columbus Day holidays. and Medieval cuisine for October 1, to celebrate a month of harvest holidays. Any objections or suggestions? - Dank (push to talk) 20:11, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Maple syrup looks rough to me -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 20:24, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@Dank: I'm not sure if you know about WP:URFA/2020, but it's an initiative to review older FAs to ensure that they comply with the FA criteria. At the bottom of WP:URFA/2020A and WP:URFA/2020B there is a list of FAs that have either passed FAR since late 2020 or been marked "Satisfactory" by three reviewers. It also lists when they last appeared at TFA. If you ever want article suggestions, feel free to consult those lists or post a message on the project's talk page.

I am also keeping an informal list off-wiki of possible TFA nominations for specific dates (I like it when TFA articles honour something that happened on that date). The only article on my list for October with a TFA re-run is Stephens City, Virginia for Oct 12, its 265th anniversary of the city's founding. Any thoughts on my nominations are appreciated. Z1720 (talk) 20:31, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Dank, the format you're using is a bit confusing. Which is the one RFA proposed at pending (I can't deciper)? As you can see from Wehwalt's chart, giving the FAC date makes it easier to cross-compare to WP:URFA/2020 to see which are old, or very old, and which have already been checked. With all the work that has already been done at URFA, and set up in a way that you can also view last TFA dates, I hope you'll avail yourself of that resource. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:41, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: I think Walt Disney is the TFA re-run that Dank refers to above that has been suggested at TFAP. Z1720 (talk) 20:48, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Just curious: how does one discover that? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:37, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I would be grateful for anything people want to do at URFA, or anywhere else, to help with vetting. The reason this request has an off-the-cuff feeling to it is: I've just been reconfirmed, and October nominations could open up at TFAR in as little as two or three weeks ... formal vetting processes often have longer time scales than that. (My plan is to let people know well in advance about any rerun suggestions I have for January.) I have no objections at all if anyone has a suggestion for different or additional reruns for October. But generally, the best place to get a discussion started about these articles is on the article talk pages, and I've done that for Talk:Medieval cuisine and Talk:The Smashing Pumpkins; comments are welcome. Sandy, TFA coords don't usually create the kind of table you're talking about until TFAR nominations for the relevant month have been open for a while (although Wehwalt does do some early work in sandboxes). I'm sorry if you're not finding everything you want; again, time is tight, and hopefully we'll get the bugs worked out before it's time to talk about January scheduling. - Dank (push to talk) 22:11, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@Guerillero, I saw a lot of editors I know in the long history of Maple syrup ... I read it and ran various tools and I was happy enough to at least want to start talking about it. Even if we don't use it this year, I'd like to consider running it in October of a future year, because the symbolism will be immediately recognizable for a lot of Main Page readers ... maple so that Canadians understand that we're acknowledging their holiday, and a food item relevant to October, to celebrate a harvest month. Let's discuss on the article talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 22:11, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The only one of these that doesn't have a relevant talk page post yet is Funerary art ... I'll go do that now. I had already hopped into an ongoing discussion at User_talk:Lingzhi.Renascence#Funerary art, and that discussion was reassuring. But again, I have no objection to putting any of these suggestions off to a future year if people would like more time to work on them or vet them. - Dank (push to talk) 22:51, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I was looking at the schedule for the upcoming month of August and it seems like maybe a mistake has been made—there's no coin article for that month. ByVarying (talk) 02:14, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Gog dropped it somewhere. We're looking, we promise.

But actually, our resident coin editors (I see RHM22 and Wehwalt) are just hard workers. Various other featured articles, such as Martinus (son of Heraclius), are aboult old subjects and don't have much visual identification other than coins, so a coin is used in the TFA. Panini! • 🥪 02:54, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

If someone would do an image review at the FAC for five pounds (British gold coin), there might be one more to choose from ... It's not hard, all the coins have identical licenses.Wehwalt (talk) 03:17, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

While we are in the process of reorganising who does what, please allow me to bring up the issue of WP:MPNOREDIRECT. The guidance reads (disclaimer – I reworded the text the other week to make it more explicit): Good reasons to bypass redirects include: ... Links on the Main Page, to avoid stealthy vandalism by retargeting high-traffic redirects. Main Page links that point to an article section should utilise a section link.

I patrol WP:Errors. Redirects, without fail, do get reported. To prevent that, I regularly patrol TFA, OTD, POTD, and TFL. And having just looked at the 31 drafts for August, 17 of them contain redirects (yes, that's theoretically 17 reports to Errors). All 17 TFAs were started by the same editor but this isn't about naming and shaming, this is about raising awareness of this issue (and I assume that all coordinators have this page on their watchlist anyway, so there's no need for a ping).

The quick and efficient way to spot redirects is to install the link classifier script. Apparently (so I've been told), the script slows down the load time of WP pages but I'm not on the fastest connection known to man and whether it takes 0.8 sec or 1.2 sec to load a page does not distract from my wellbeing, but I acknowledge that it might bother other editors. Either way, if some of you coordinators have the script installed, maybe you could mop up after those without the script. Schwede66 22:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I do try to remember but obviously I'm less than perfect at it. I'll try to do better for September, scheduling for which should begin in a week or so. Wehwalt (talk) 22:23, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

That's a neat script, thanks. Picked up a couple of issues even on a set of blurbs I thought I had checked for redirects. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:28, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I think I have fixed all of the August redirects. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:07, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

That's a neat script indeed. Thanks for adopting it! Fixed a couple of remaining redirects and all TFA August blurbs are now clean. Schwede66 23:56, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Schwede66: That script is exactly what I needed. I've been seeing you edit TFL blurbs for redirects and haven't really felt able to find them myself. When it's been on my mind, I've tried using the redirect finder in the FAC/FLC toolbox, but I don't think it's reliable. As an example, I didn't see any redirects listed for the August 11 TFL, but you had to end up making this edit. Perhaps I was just looking at the wrong thing, but this will make it so much easier to find redirects now. Thanks for telling us about that. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

My pleasure. Schwede66 01:34, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I've just finished with scheduling September. I think I've caught the redirects and also have tried to minimize the use of templates such as convert. Wehwalt (talk) 00:56, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll be following in Gog's, Wehwalt's and Jim's footsteps in my approach to scheduling October, January, April and July (but it will take me a few months to get up to speed). About a month before the actual scheduling happens, I'll be posting a very rough and flexible draft at the usual place (for October, WT:Today's featured article/October 2023). Because of all the constraints, there will usually be room for at most one of each kind of article ... one (modern) song, one mammal, one astronomy article, and so on ... so it might be a good idea to get in your requests early at the pending page or the requests page. (Later requests may get held over to the next month.) As always, let me know if there's anything I can help with. I'm going to try to run a few Vital (or near-Vital) articles during these months, and Z1720 has offered to help with selecting and vetting some of those. - Dank (push to talk) 23:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020 lists older FAs, and you can sort the lists my main page appearance. If there is a vital or near-vital topic that you want to appear on the main page again, you can evaluate the article (to ensure that it still meets the FA criteria) and mark it as "Satisfactory". This will get the URFA/2020 regular's attention and they will also hopefully take a look at it.

I have compiled a chart off-wiki that has suggested dates for most FAs from WP:FANMP and FAs from categories that are empty or near empty in TFAMP. I try to prioritise other editors' wishes (by consulting WP:TFAP and WP:TFAR) but if anyone wants to get a head start on TFA ideas, feel free to message my talk page or ping me. Z1720 (talk) 15:45, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Unreviewed featured articles/2020 (URFA/2020) is a systematic approach to reviewing older Featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards. A January 2022 Signpost article called "Forgotten Featured" explored the effort.

Progress is recorded at the monthly stats page. Through 2022, with 4,526 very old (from the 2004–2009 period) and old (2010–2015) FAs initially needing review:

• 357 FAs were delisted at Featured article review (FAR).
• 222 FAs were kept at FAR or deemed "satisfactory" by three URFA reviewers, with hundreds more being marked as "satisfactory", but awaiting three reviews.
• FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs at the end of 2020 to 64% at the end of 2022.

Of the FAs kept, deemed satisfactory by three reviewers, or delisted, about 60% had prior review between 2004 and 2007; another 20% dated to the period from 2008–2009; and another 20% to 2010–2015. Roughly two-thirds of the old FAs reviewed have retained FA status or been marked "satisfactory", while two-thirds of the very old FAs have been defeatured.

Entering its third year, URFA is working to help maintain FA standards; FAs are being restored not only via FAR, but also via improvements initiated after articles are reviewed and talk pages are noticed. Since the Featured Article Save Award (FASA) was added to the FAR process a year ago, 38 FAs were restored to FA status by editors other than the original FAC nominator. Ten FAs restored to status have been listed at WP:MILLION, recognizing articles with annual readership over a million pageviews, and many have been rerun as Today's featured article, helping increase mainpage diversity.

But there remain almost 4,000 old and very old FAs to be reviewed. Some topic areas and WikiProjects have been more proactive than others in restoring or maintaining their old FAs. As seen in the chart below, the following have very high ratios of FAs kept to those delisted (ordered from highest ratio):

• Biology
• Physics and astronomy
• Warfare
• Video gaming

and others have a good ratio of kept to delisted FAs:

• Literature and theatre
• Engineering and technology
• Religion, mysticism and mythology
• Media
• Geology and geophysics

... so kudos to those editors who pitched in to help maintain older FAs !

But looking only at the oldest FAs (from the 2004–2007 period), there are 12 content areas with more than 20 FAs still needing review: Biology, Music, Royalty and nobility, Media, Sport and recreation, History, Warfare, Meteorology, Physics and astronomy, Literature and theatre, Video gaming, and Geography and places. In the coming weeks, URFA/2020 editors will be posting lists to individual WikiProjects with the goal of getting these oldest-of-the-old FAs reviewed during 2023.

Ideas for how you can help are listed below and at the Signpost article.

• Review a 2004 to 2007 FA. With three "Satisfactory" marks, article can be moved to the FAR not needed section.
• Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. A continuously maintained FA is a good predictor that standards are still met, and with two more "Satisfactory" marks, "your" articles can be listed as "FAR not needed". If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
• Review articles that already have one "Satisfactory" mark: more FAs can be indicated as "FAR not needed" if other reviewers will have a look at those already indicated as maintained by the original nominator. If you find issues, you can enter them at the talk page.
• Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
• Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed. Sometimes nominating at FAR draws additional editors to help improve the article that would otherwise not look at it.

More regular URFA and FAR reviewers will help assure that FAs continue to represent examples of Wikipedia's best work. If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/4Q2022.

So Battle of Helena is finishing up today's run for TFA. I was away from my computer and unable to monitor the page, and while there's some standard post-TFA cleanup like where non-consensus numbers were added with an obsolete source, but that's expected and normal. But I'm also having to re-protect the page because the 6-hour protection didn't stick, and having to answer this because some pervert put pornographic imagery into the article earlier today. And that's besides all of the standard formatting messing up and date vandalism that I'm going to have to correct in related articles like Little Rock campaign and Marmaduke-Walker duel.

Once upon a time, we were semi-protecting FACs before they went on because this happens almost every damn time. And that stopped, for reasons that have never been clear to me. So now we're showing porn when someone previews the TFA today. Between articles I've worked on or have helped with or have agreed to monitor for others, I'm probably maintaining about 150-175 articles. And that's a lot of vandalism and sneaky incorrect information and similar to clean up on an almost daily basis. And then you throw in the free-for-all that TFA has become.

Vandals or content creators? Who should get precedence? Frankly, the answer should be the latter but our TFA policies are heavily skewed to the former. I'm not a top-flight content creator, but I've been involved with the FA process for almost three years now in various ways. Real life has thrown some stuff at me in the last several months to the extent that I've been too burnt out to write content lately. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel in real life, but I'm having strong second thoughts about writing content again. The garden variety stuff I can deal with; that's just part of the process. But the community willfully placing vandals, trolls, and troublemongers ahead of those who actually bust our asses to produce encyclopedic content is another thing. Hog Farm _Talk 23:07, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I can see the argument that we shouldn't be making TFAs impossible to edit, but I'd support automatic application of pending changes protection to all articles linked from the main page that aren't otherwise protected. The vandalism is real on TFAs and unfortunately it doesn't always get reverted right away. (t · c) buidhe 23:27, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I vaguely recall a protection trial getting consensus and then never happening. Vaticidalprophet 23:48, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

The trial happened but for some reason it wasn't continued. (t · c) buidhe 01:02, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

An early 2021 RFC resulted in a trial of a bot to PC-protect the featured article. That trial happened in May 2021, but when the follow-up RFC happened in June 2021 a significant fraction of participants that time opposed any use of PC protection on general principle (i.e. not because of anything that happened during the trial) and people wound up deciding they'd rather have a trial for semi-protection instead. That trial eventually happened in September 2022. Following that was supposed to be another Village Pump RFC to analyze the results and determine if it should be continued going forward, but it seems no one ever did that. Anomie⚔ 11:32, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

So it seems that the followup needs to happen and that opining here will do no good. (FWIW, one of the several reasons I gave up on building new medical content was the debacle that TFA was for buruli ulcer along with some other ridiculousness that occurred with others.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:06, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

The results make an extremely strong case -- an additional RfC would likely have quite little opposition on the merits rather than the principles, if we can get a good way to present them. Vaticidalprophet 23:21, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support some form of protection, even if it means creating an easement within the current policy (which IIRC forbids preemptive protection). SN54129 09:51, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Noting, porn on the mainpage during lung cancer, [3] and I just took a look at the improvements damage to the article in its mainpage day (today), and someone should protect the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:20, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  Best part. The editor who put the porn on the mainpage today is still unblocked. Yes, enough is enough. TFA isn't even being watched by enough admins to keep out porn = should be protected for the remainder. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:24, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support semi-protecting TFAs one day before and while they are on the main page. Further protections can be considered if this does not solve the problems. Z1720 (talk) 12:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  There have been multiple RFCS already ... supporting on this page isn't useful, as that is a local consensus problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:00, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• I have had 45 FAs I nominated for FAC feature as a TFA over the past four-and-a-half years. Every single one of them has had some level of protection by the end of its 24 hours. I agree that it may be time to recognise reality, decline to dig ourselves further into this particular hole and write in a policy-level easement to preemptive protection. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:37, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
• Semi-protecting TFA is fine (usually FAs are so good these days that there is very little to be gained from opening edits to the whole world). I would oppose protection for other content linked from the Main Page, and I definitely oppose Pending Changes or other horrible non-wiki ways of dealing with changes. —Kusma (talk) 15:02, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
• This is embarrassing (the porn image in the infobox of TFA, not this discussion). If I, or another admin, just decided to semi every upcoming TFA around 23:00 each night, would said admin end up before the WP:Slough of Despond? After this, I’m willing to do it, but a bot would be so much better. Courcelles (talk) 17:46, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  We have a local consensus and if we opened another RcC, that would give us justification to proceed with protection without much risk for trouble. Schwede66 18:00, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  Sometimes you ask permission, sometimes you ask forgiveness. I believe there's a saying about their efficiency. Vaticidalprophet 23:18, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  Michael Francis Rizzi, do you renounce Satan? SN54129 11:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Vaticidalprophet, I did it for tomorrow’s. I’ll try and remember to keep doing so. Courcelles (talk) 23:31, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  In practice: I think an RfC about the trial results can be done very soon, and if presented well (i.e. a way that doesn't force VPP's regulars to click too much), will sail through. "Four oversighted edits in four minutes" is emphatically something that makes a case. Vaticidalprophet 23:33, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment - just playing minor devil's advocate for a second, I assume that historically the reason for being careful about overprotectiion was that the TFA could be the way for potential newbies to learn that Wikipedia really is editable by anyone. I don't know if there's any evidence around whether there really are editors that we wouldn't recruit otherwise. As we mvoe to greater protection, and perhaps even requiring accounts in the future, we just need to think about keeping that "anyone can edit" message prominent, because there really are a lot of people who don't realise its the case. But anyway, given both the risk of articles being grotesquely vandalised and also the effect that has on editors like Sandy, based on the comments above, something definitely needs to be done and probably Semi-protectiom is The answer.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:00, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

  While I share the concerns about keeping the promise "anyone can edit", I no longer think TFA is a good place for a newbie (it is rather unlikely a random newbie can help) so I semi is OK in my book (DYK items are a much better target). If we are thinking about alternatives, the only other thing I see that could be done is to get more people to do RC patrol on TFA so we can quickly revert and block the vandals. —Kusma (talk) 12:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

  Well, it's not so much that we expect the newbies to contribute usefully to the FA, but the point is that you see an article, you hit the "Edit" button, and your change goes live. I think my first ever edit was to insert "cauliflower cheese" into an article as a joke/test, fully expecting it not to work, or be vetted in some way, but was astonished to see that it just saved straight into the page, and then realised I could also contribute.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:04, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

  If there isn't any data or "evidence around whether there really are editors that we wouldn't recruit otherwise", WMF will make some up based on a survey and twist it to suit their narrative. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

• Counter-example After reading this discussion, I took a look at the current FA. Picking a paragraph at random, I immediately found and corrected a malapropism. I was able to edit through the semi-protection but ordinary readers would not. So, the idea that FAs are so pristine that they don't need correction is mistaken. My impression is that they are usually so long that most of the text is read by few people and so such errors can persist for some time.

FYI, the error was introduced in this good faith edit rather than being the result of vandalism.

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:27, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• Strong Support semi-protecting TFAs one day before and while they are on the main page. Enough is enough. Are we going to let the article that is essentially the face of the encyclopaedia for a day get degraded by vandals? No. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 08:10, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support Vandals or content creators? I'll go with the content creators. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello,

We are reaching out to escalate feedback we are receiving through the app questioning the integrity of Wikipedia as a result of vandalism of the article of the day.

"I opened up my Home Screen to see my Wikipedia widget showing NSFW content on my home page. No steps to replicate, I’ve opened and refreshed the article multiple times, not sure where it’s pulling the image from."

The approach of proactively protecting articles of the day drastically decreased complaints like the ones above until the recent decision to rescind proactive protections. On our end we are doing what we can to reduce interruptions in user experience by increasing the velocity of clearing cache to ensure our explore feed is updated with the article is updated. We've also created this ticket (T342119) with additional approaches. Ultimately, the biggest intervention we've seen work is to prevent them all together by protecting the page when it is the article of the day. We hope this insight will serve as an additional input as you all decide what makes most sense for your group. We are also open to additional ideas you have that we can implement on our end.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to the community and movement.

ARamadan-WMF (talk) 08:53, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support automatic semi-protection of TFAs. I can bring this to WP:CENT if it hasn't already been there. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

  Please do. Remembering to do it manually is something I’m only managing most days. Courcelles (talk) 21:06, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

  Ask and ye shall receive. I've put it at WP:VPP and will bring it to CENT shortly. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:37, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

There's a discussion at Errors and that points back to TFA practices that appear to be agreed but are undocumented. I've had a look around but there does not appear to be anything written down about writing TFAs other than what is written on the project page: Each day, a summary (roughly 975 characters long) of one of Wikipedia's featured articles (FAs) appears at the top of the Main Page as Today's Featured Article (TFA). Here's what got discussed at Errors:

Should we write down any of the those rules and practices as they apply to TFAs. I think it's a good idea as it makes everything a bit more transparent and when something crops up at Errors, there's hopefully something one can refer to rather than having to rely on some of the insiders knowing how it's usually done. Schwede66 22:55, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd be happy to draft a list of prevailing "general conventions" (so to speak) from my experience looking over TFAs and other Main Page sections, which we can of course discuss and amend as we see fit. It isn't an urgent necessity, I don't think, but would certainly be useful in general. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 23:37, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Today's TFA is my third or fourth one to receive essays of scrutiny from User:Dying a few hours before appearing on the main page. To my utter shock, an admin casually suggested pushing back the TFA appearance because of minor concerns no FAC reviewer shared. There has to be a way to do things while respecting the contributors who have put in years of hard work to get an article on the main page on a specific date. Come on, people! Having an article appear on the main page is an incredible achievement for any editor and it is not fair to have that experience regularly spoiled. I suggest moving the scrutiny sessions to at least a month before main page appearances so that FAC reviewers are able to participate in the discussions. The way it is currently being conducted, the contributors feel extreme pressure to give in to this one user's demands and change the versions of articles that have passed the community FAC process, which does not seem fair.--NØ 10:33, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Off the top of my head:

Given how much in advance TFAs are scheduled (eg, November's draft schedule is already up), if an editor can't flag up extensive and/or existential concerns at least a week before they are due to appear, then as a coordinator I would be inclined to ignore them. Minor points should be flagged up even more in advance.

WP:FAOWN applies. A consensus formed at FAC is one of the stronger ones on Wikipedia. To change it there needs to be either a significant and manifest error or an equally strong consensus to change. (It is up to the person wishing to make such a change to either make the case or gather the consensus, in the absence of agreement from the FAC nominator(s) - which should not be unreasonably withheld.) This is just normal procedure and applies while an article is nominated or scheduled for TFA as much as at any other time.

Withdrawing a TFA once scheduled is down to the scheduling coordinator. They should, obviously, take all available information into account and may consult the other coordinators. Anyone may, casually or otherwise, suggest postponement or withdrawal for any reason, and if discussions are becoming heated I am sympathetic. I think that the coordinators are only likely to go along with this for the most egregious issues (probably for older FACs) with a strong trade off between how egregious and how long before the scheduled main page appearance.

I agree that regular reviewers of blurbs - who provide an extremely important service - should be carrying out such reviews well in advance. The suggestion of a month sounds about right, insofar as I would hope that such reviewers would around now be down to a handful of outstanding issues regarding the October blurbs and have started to look at the early November ones.

Neither TFA nor (especially) Errors are venues for re-lawyering FACs.

I am sure that other opinions are also available. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:42, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

For me, I think the bottom line is that I've been away from the day-to-day business of TFA for two years, and now that I'm looking more closely, it's a bit confusing. Most of the time, people are happy, and most conflicts that do arise are handled productively. But there's still some disagreement about how all the gears fit together, and about when things are supposed to happen. Before I weigh in, I'd like to get the experience of managing October under my belt. Hopefully I'll be able to draw some initial conclusions in early November. - Dank (push to talk) 16:35, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree with both my colleagues and urge the scrutiny of blurbs, and if necessary the underlying articles, at as early a time as possible. For example, when a nomination is made at TFA/R, it would be useful if those who are helping us by editing blurbs, edit these blurbs while the nominations are being !voted upon. That would help bring out problems at the earliest possible date, and maximize the feedback. WP:ERRORS should be a final backstop, with as much work as possible, ideally everything, done in advance of TFA day. Wehwalt (talk) 16:58, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what the basis for this statement is: A consensus formed at FAC is one of the stronger ones on Wikipedia. To change it there needs to be either a significant and manifest error or an equally strong consensus to change. (It is up to the person wishing to make such a change to either make the case or gather the consensus, in the absence of agreement from the FAC nominator(s) - which should not be unreasonably withheld.) This is just normal procedure and applies while an article is nominated or scheduled for TFA as much as at any other time. To my knowledge, this entire premise is simply mistaken; FACs these days get a few more reviews than the one review that GAs get, and not everything is reviewed. I hope we aren't pushing the idea that the version of an FA that got reviewed by a small handful of FAC reviewers is somehow set in stone, forever immutable, particularly when crucial things are being missed that Dying is having to pick up on. The point of TFA was once that article improvements happen during TFA-- not that a handful of editors can stall improvements when a broader audience than FAC sees an FA on the main page. There is nothing about an FA that circumvents levels of consensus policy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:19, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi SandyGeorgia, the policy states:

While Featured articles... are open for editing like any other, they have gone through a community review process as Featured article candidates, where they are checked for high-quality sources, a thorough survey of the relevant literature, and compliance with the Featured article criteria. Editors are asked to take particular care when editing a Featured article; it is considerate to discuss significant changes of text or images on the talk page first. The other policy being cited is WP:ONUS. SN54129 15:02, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129 I'm curious to know why you think I need to be told this :) :) :). Gog's post above is well off the mark of FAOWN, to the point of concern and alarm. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

And the earlier history than that is at Wikipedia talk:Ownership of content/Archive 1#Featured articles and Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive47#WP:OWN, calling out: I merely want WP:OWN to be redrafted so that the positive efforts of primary editors to maintain the standards of their work aren't classified as "ownnership" in the derogatory sense ... Brianboulton (talk) 00:03, 25 September 2010 (UTC) (that's where it started, and that's the intent, which is well off the prima donna tone this entire thread conveys, when issues are found in an article that passed FAC). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:22, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

• Speaking as someone who works quite a bit with issues raised at WP:ERRORS, but also with a few FAs under my belt, I have to say I disagree with the sentiments expressed above. Editors have every right to flag issues with FACs prior to go-live, just as they would with any other area of the main page. My priority, and I hope others' too, is to ensure that what we show to our readers on one of the web's most visited pages is fully accurate, reflective of the literature, and also representative of our best work. Of course, in an ideal would everyone would be scrutinising TFAs months in advance and flagging issues then, but it's not an ideal world. In reality, the majority of checks on TFA, DYK, OTD and POTD happen in the day or two leading up to a particular run. And I have to say, hanging Dying out to dry like this is very unfair, when they're doing a fantastic and useful job in keeping an eye on TFA. It doesn't happen nearly as often here as in DYK, but every nominator should still be prepared for the fact that sometimes there will be issues. In this case, it seemed like the issue of whether Deja Vu is the second or third single is clear enough given the Billboard definition, but it's ambiguous enough that it was worth asking the question. Of course, FAC is a fairly rigorous process and one would expect that the resulting article is excellent in quality, but that doesn't mean it's immune from scrutiny or guaranteed 100% perfect, as implied above. There might be an issue that no reviewer managed to pick up, or perhaps there's clear sourced evidence that something is amiss.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:08, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  No one's throwing anyone under the bus, and dying's work is greatly valued. They were, after all, one of the editors we were considering to fill the vacancy among the coordinators until Dank, a former coordinator, offered their services. That esteem has only risen since then. We know that there are always going to be TFA-day reports at WP:ERRORS. We're simply trying to brainstorm ways to move the process earlier wherever we can. The more time, the better decisions, this seems obvious. Last night we were faced with suggestions that a TFA be pulled or postponed with only a couple of hours to go. That doesn't leave a lot of time for community discussion before something has to be done one way or another. Wehwalt (talk) 18:00, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  I don't disagree with any of this, Wehwalt, and certainly earlier scrutiny is preferable to later - if we can get to that point through discussion then great. But the OP statement at the top of this section says "The way it is currently being conducted, the contributors feel extreme pressure to give in to this one user's demands", as if Dying is being unreasonable in reviewing TFA articles. And then there's a suggestion from Gog that we should ignore "extensive and/or existential concerns" if they are raised less than a week before the TFA, implying that we'd let serious issues go uncorrected, simply to protect the sanctity of the "locked-in" version of the TFA and to spare the FA nominator's feelings... Anyway, that aside, let's have at it and work together to come up with a good long-term way forward! Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 18:19, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Hi Amakuru, you seem to have misunderstood what I was saying. No one is arguing that Dying should not be allowed to scrutinize TFA blurbs to "spare the FA nominator's feelings". They should just do it at a time which allows a time window for the points of scrutiny to be discussed by several editors to obtain a consensus. TFAs are generally scheduled months in advance so there is ample time. Doing it at the last moment which jeopardizes the TFA appearance itself is not the more good faith option. It is not about protecting the "locked-in" version of a TFA but rather about protecting the consensus-drivenness of the process.--NØ 20:35, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  You should instead be grateful that Dying has time to identify issues to be resolved, regardless of when Dying is able to get to them. If errors are identified the day an FA runs, or one or two days before, fixing them (rather than complaining about someone who bothered) should be the main priority and concern. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:21, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  I fail to see how these conditions are mutually exclusive. I am grateful Dying has the time to identify the issues to be resolved and, simultaneously, said identifications should be done for TFAs scheduled a month or at least a week away so the points raised can be deliberated upon for consensus. Identifying issues in TFAs scheduled a month away does not take any extra time compared to identifying them in TFAs scheduled two hours later. Not sure why a very simple point is not getting through.--NØ 21:27, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Because volunteers have time ... when they have time ... and we can't demand someone review something on a time schedule convenient to us. But more ... the entire tone of this section is problematic. Let's not have FAC become about being prima donnas rather than gratitude for any review we can get, whenever that happens. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:40, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Identifying issues in TFAs scheduled a month away does not take any extra time compared to identifying them in TFAs scheduled two hours later. Dying would not be spending extra time reviewing articles scheduled a month away...--NØ 21:44, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  I'm curious how you know Dying's schedule or time constraints? Why not focus on the real issue; why are deficient leads passing FAC at all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:47, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Reviewing an article scheduled for October 10 does not take any more time than reviewing an article scheduled for the date September 10. Blurbs have more or less the same amount of characters. No one's schedule needs to be looked at to know this...--NØ 21:50, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Respectfully, I think that's an unrealistic demand. Aside from anything else, to get from where we are now to the October 10 point, dying would have to somehow work through 2+ noms a day for the next month, and then also not have any breaks thereafter in order to keep that up. You can flag that up as a "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" for dying if you like, but you certainly can't demand that they do this. Dying is doing you and the rest of the project a favour by reviewing the TFA, not the other way around. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:05, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  I too think that would be an unrealistic demand so they could probably decide to skip some. But I hope I have been able to demonstrate that my point is about the time window and not about the scrutiny itself. Cheers.--NØ 22:11, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

• Dying does a good job, and the TFA schedulers are working well enough in advance, so I don't agree with criticism there, and don't see any need for change. I'm mostly in line with Amakuru here, with one big difference.
  The underlying problem here resides at FAC; Dying should not be needing to do what Dying does so well. Leads are used to generate TFA blurbs, and leads are not being well enough scrutinized at FAC. The blurbs should more easily write themselves if FAC is doing its job at reviewing the lead. That is the reason that 2a has a separate callout in the criteria, and that Dying is doing so much work on blurbs indicates FAC isn't doing the job there. This problem should be raised at FAC-- not aimed at Dying or the TFA schedulers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:41, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Deficient leads getting through FAC are by no means rare. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:46, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  The blurbs don't write themselves because the character limit on blurbs is so much smaller than that of the average Good Article. Even a short article like The Forum, Norwich (picked at random from the GA queue) with a one paragraph lead still has a lead longer than the blurb limit. Most FAs have 3 or 4 paragraphs. So the blurbs have to be custom-written, and this is usually done by the TFA coordinator and FAC nominator in partnership. Nowadays we do it shortly after the article is promoted, but some still have to be written at the time it is nominated for TFA. Errors can occur in the condensation process. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:56, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  I acknowledge and understand that, but then I've seen many times (as in the two examples I gave above), where the deficiencies were not in the condensation to a blurb, but in the actual lead content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:44, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm late to this discussion – been off WP for a day and a bit. I'm the admin who "casually suggested" that pushing back the TFA appearance was an option for dealing with unresolved issues. I'm not sure why that suggestion caused "utter shock" to MaranoFan. I could understand that concern if the scheduled date was of relevance to a particular TFA, but this wasn't the case. In general terms and for future reference, I'd like to learn why swapping TFAs if one that's about to run has unresolved issues is apparently not an option that's available to us. The reason why I'm asking is because I think that's an elegant way of dealing with time pressure; such a swap would generate as much time as needed to get to the bottom of any potential issues. Schwede66 19:25, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

There is a date relevance for the FA in question but that is not the point. "Unresolved issues" is subjective, and Dying in particular finds "unresolved issues" extremely often a mere few hours before TFA appearances. This does not leave the time window for subject matter experts and the FAC's reviewers to weigh in on why they did not perceive the same "unresolved issues". Given how often this happens, starting to willy-nilly delay TFA appearances is dangerous territory and we might as well close down the TFAR page as it is absolutely meaningless.--NØ 19:56, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Sometimes such a swap would be fairly feasible, but sometimes that would mean that an article is being put up where the FAC nominator is not expecting it so soon and the blurb may not be as vetted as we usually have it. Wehwalt (talk) 19:52, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Completely agreed with Wehwalt, and I'll fill in some details on what "feasible" looks like to me: if there's a well-supported argument going on the day before a blurb's Main Page appearance, and it's about something substantive and significant, and there isn't a quick rewording or workaround available that would keep us out of trouble, and it looks like we won't figure out an answer before the Main Page appearance, and if there's another risk-free blurb available that could be swapped in, and if it's one of my months to handle these things ... yes, I'd be open to pulling it. Otherwise, I think, no, because pulling articles at the last minute has sometimes caused people to lose faith in the process. (I can give examples but I'd rather not.) - Dank (push to talk) 20:01, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Do TFA coordinators all have Errors on their watchlist? Or what's the best way to get input? Or is it really up to that month's coordinator to make a call (and I assume I can figure out who the coordinator is simply by looking at an item's history)? Schwede66 20:10, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

{{@TFA}} always works, but if you'd rather ping us individually: I've got the first month of each quarter, Gog has the 2nd, and Wehwalt has the 3rd. I don't have the page watchlisted, but I'm subscribed to the section (i.e. WP:Main_Page/Errors#Errors in the summary of the featured article). - Dank (push to talk) 20:32, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I do keep WP:ERRORS on my watchlist. Often, I've seen action taken on issues before I notice, or I may feel that I don't care to weigh in on, for one reason or another.

Getting back to swaps, if one had been necessary, I could have done it for the 13th, since I was the FAC nominator there. It's usually my practice to have an article late in the month where the nominator is either myself or someone no longer active, that can be sacrificed or swapped. But I already used up that flexibility when late scheduling requests came in. So after the 13th, a swap would be problematical. Wehwalt (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

An awful lot of work goes into getting an article to TFA. Editors can devote years of their Wikipedian efforts to getting an article onto the front page and can see this as the pinnacle of their work on the site. I have heard of relatives being emailed or fan sites alerted. The blurb may have been on TFAR for several weeks and garnered nothing but supports. Four or five weeks in advance the nominating editor will have been formally told that it will be running as a TFA and when. When it is subsequently suggested at a few hours notice that it be pulled I suspect that for some nominators "utter shock" is only mildly hyperbolic.

No one argues that blurbs don't need reviewing or are not the better for this. This is one reason why there is a formal process for reviewing and approving - or not - requested TFAs. And why coordinators try really hard to have draft blurbs up six weeks in advance and to get finalised blurbs posted at least a month in advance. Which may well leave people scratching their heads as to why Errors is being used for something for which there is already a well established system.

But I am starting to repeat what I said above in "Off the top of my head". Re-reading it that seems on the money and I don't see anything in my colleagues subsequent comments which contradicts anything there. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:52, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for all your replies! Schwede66 20:57, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

everyone, it is admittedly a bit weird for me to see what i do described as a tfa scrutiny session, as i had generally thought of what i did as an informal process rather than anything officially part of tfa. however, if other editors are beginning to see it as part of tfa, i feel like i should be subject to a tfa scrutiny session myself, so that we can formalize anything that seems to call for formalization. to facilitate this, i had started writing out a description of what i have been doing, but eventually realized that such a description would be very long, even if i focused only on the parts most pertinent to this discussion, so i have opted to give only a very brief overview of the most relevant parts instead. i hope you all will forgive me for this wall of text, as well as the delayed response, as a new blurb copyedit comes due every day no matter what. there are many other points that i'd like to address, but this comment is getting so long, i thought i should mention only what i think is most important.

• my current understanding is that the only thing that is really formalized about my process is that if i make any unilateral copyedits to the blurb, i generally should make them at least a week in advance. technically, i have no responsibilities at tfa and can just stop doing what i do whenever i want without even resigning anything. however, i wouldn't dream of that because i really enjoy the process and working with the editors here at tfa. over time, i think i have ended up with some implicit responsibilities. for example, i think i have enough experience reviewing featured articles and tfa blurbs at this point that i would be expected to speak up if i think a blurb may need to be rewritten or possibly pulled, which thankfully has been extremely rare.
• i believe the unilateral copyedit i make to the blurb consists only of uncontroversial changes. i make no future edits to the blurb without forming some kind of consensus with at least one other editor, often the fac nominator. i believe i have adhered to this self-imposed standard for roughly two years now, and follow it strictly enough that if i later discover an error on my part that hasn't been corrected by subsequent copyeditors, i will report myself to wp:errors rather than make another unilateral edit. interestingly, i also tend to avoid making any unilateral edits to the featured article itself at any time, even to correct obvious errors, so i believe wp:faown is pretty much respected by default.
• the time i spend on any one blurb is often spread out over weeks, but the bulk of it is generally spent on the day i make the unilateral copyedit to the blurb. during the process of preparing for this copyedit, i may have noted some issues that i think deserve further consideration. i am usually burnt out on the subject matter immediately after the copyedit, so will generally let at least a day or two pass before i look at my notes again to see if what i had a concern about at the time remains something that i think should be addressed. the points can be quite varied, so there is really no way for me to predict how much time i need in order to do my own research before i raise a query with an fac nominator. notably, my research often also includes reviewing the fac discussion, as i do not wish to relitigate any issues that were already covered at fac.
• i have admittedly never considered my queries to fall under any time restriction, since i believe any editor is open to scrutiny at any time, and in fact, may get a good deal of it on the day their work is featured on the main page. however, as a courtesy, i try to raise any points at least two or three days before the main page appearance date, so that an fac nominator has about a day to change the blurb before it falls under cascading protection. i don't consider this a strict deadline; if i don't get much time that day to work on tfa matters, the copyedit always takes priority.
• unfortunately, this process is rather time-consuming and not easily compressible. i think my limit is roughly one blurb a day at the level of quality i have been aiming for, not only due to temporal considerations, but also due to psychological ones. i'm actually rather surprised that i have been able to do this for two years without a break so far, and am not sure if i need one anytime soon.

anyway, i hope this gives a very rough idea of what i do. any of it is open to change, and i will be happy to try to conform to any consensus established here. also, please let me know if you want any details or clarification regarding anything i glossed over or simply didn't mention.

as an aside, to those who don't know this, i have previously tried to make it clear to the tfa coordinators that i welcome criticism, so although it may seem to some that they are being overly harsh, i have been seeing their comments as good feedback rather than taking any of it personally. that being said, i am unbelievably grateful for those who have come to my defense. all these words of praise from editors i greatly respect has brought much water to my eyes.

last but not least, i wanted to mention something in defense of Schwede66, who raised the possibility of the blurb being rescheduled. i think raising the question was entirely reasonable, as tfa appearance dates have been pushed back before, or simply pulled, and how that is decided is not necessarily entirely clear to everyone at wp:errors. in this case, i thought what happened was proper: the tfa scheduler for the month was alerted, and made a decision, which stood. the process worked, and no one did anything wrong. dying (talk) 04:44, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the amazing summary of your dedication, which is most appreciated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:59, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Wow. That’s way more involved than what I had imagined. Thanks for your good work. Schwede66 09:02, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, OMG, thanks for your work. I mean that sincerely. Believe me, my intention is not to bring "water to [your] eyes" but to avoid last minute tensions for the TFA nominators. Highlighting issues a few weeks in advance seems to be something you are open to doing, if I understand correctly?--NØ 09:24, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

MaranoFan, sure, if there's a consensus for it. how should it be implemented? obviously, i am simply incapable of completing the big hairy audacious goal. should i just jump ahead and ignore a month's worth of blurbs? admittedly, the next few copyedits might be a bit rough then, as i don't think i've begun reviewing any of the blurbs at that point yet. i am also not sure if this change would put undue pressure on the tfa coordinators. based on the schedule you are proposing, i should have made my unilateral copyedit of the first october blurb about three weeks ago, even though that blurb was only posted one week ago. i don't know if it would be fair to ask the coordinators to change their schedule just so that i can post my unilateral copyedits according to the schedule you are requesting.

also, would this mean that i simply shouldn't mention anything about a blurb during the month before it appears on the main page? i assume this would necessarily mean that i should also ignore all blurbs that are swapped in less than a month before their appearance. in addition, would this restriction apply only to myself, to a certain subset of editors, or to everyone? note that i actually don't mind if there is consensus for a restriction that applies only to me. after all, the request for me to make unilateral edits at least a week before a blurb's run date is a similar restriction, and i have no issues with it.

i feel like i should also note that, with such a change, my ability to help out at wp:errors will probably be much weaker, since i generally stop thinking about a blurb after the unilateral copyedit unless there are remaining issues to consider, in order to prevent burnout. for example, i remember being able to explain that an unusual image choice was due to a date request that was not obvious in this error report, but i just looked through the july blurbs and realized that, aside from the obvious ones, i can no longer remember offhand if any of them had a specific date request.

by the way, is the timing of my queries a concern for the other fac nominators? i think this is the first time it has been raised before, so was rather surprised at the suggestion of the big hairy audacious goal. i can understand being troubled by someone unilaterally changing a blurb not long before it falls under cascading protection, but as i welcome people critiquing my work, i admittedly had never considered the possibility that one of my queries would spoil someone's tfa appearance experience before. (i was actually the idiot responsible for the quirky image hook at dyk this past april fools' day, and greatly enjoyed all the error reports.)

if it is just you, i think it should be easy enough to accommodate one person's wishes. there is one obvious solution: i could simply skip over your blurbs. the process is a labor of love, and there is no need for me to put myself through the process if you prefer to avoid scrutiny. tfa doesn't require it, and the project ran fine for years without me. i can also think of another solution offhand. when Dank was helping me develop my process, i would raise my concerns regarding the blurbs directly with him, and he would decide whether something should be done about them. following that practice, in the future, i could raise any concerns i have regarding your blurbs directly with the tfa scheduler for the month instead, who could handle them if desired, to avoid spoiling your experience. would either of these options be agreeable to you? dying (talk) 21:05, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

It would be great if Dying could bring that level of scrutiny to articles at FAC, although per VOL etc some prefer to play a lone game. SN54129 13:28, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: we can always hope, yet be thankful for his copyedits to our blurbs. -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129, i am admittedly unsure of what you mean by "play a lone game", but i have actually been meaning to join you all at fac for some time. unfortunately, i have been hitting a psychological barrier: i don't want to technically have the power to fail someone's article without having gone through the process myself. ironically, my work at tfa is currently what is preventing me from finding the time to write anything worthy of the fac process. hopefully someday. dying (talk) 21:05, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@Dying: Let me express myself through the medium of poetry. Yes, I am that kind of sensitive guy :D ^{(It's [FBDB])} SN54129 20:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Nicely done, and thanks for your work. - Dank (push to talk) 13:30, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

• Different editors have different habits and workflows and, per our policy WP:CHOICE, they are free to work in their own way. In my case, I usually browse the main page every morning, looking at all the sections such as TFA, DYK, ITN and so on. If I especially like an entry then I might thank the principal author, who oftens turns out to be Dumelow. If I spot some other issue then I may drill down and check it out. If it seems erroneous, then I report it at WP:ERRORS because that's the proper process.

It is then sometimes suggested that I should have spotted and reported the error sooner. This is absurd because this is usually the first time I've encountered the article in question and I look at many such articles every day. The point of putting articles on the main page is to give them a much wider exposure than they would otherwise get and so I'm just one of thousands of editors reading the new day's entries. These many eyes will naturally bring lots of fresh perspectives and so a spike in feedback should be expected.

I've sometimes wondered whether I should try inspecting such articles at the outset. The trouble is that, when I look at WP:FAC, I find that it's full of articles like 1912–13 Gillingham F.C. season which are far from vital and so only of interest to fans. So, that's another factor – such niche topics are not going to get much attention until they reach the main page. At the recent London Wikimeet, the work of Phlsph7 was commended. They have been bringing broad topics like Education and Logic to GA level and this is so unusual that it's remarkable.

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:39, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Andrew. This is in reply, but also in reply to the current complaint at WP:ERRORS about today's TFA ... which is (quote) "Seems largely promotional." I've been wondering for a while what my philosophy is going to be regarding complaints at ERRORS during October, and the answer just popped into my head (finally). I think the key is to respond in two different ways at the same time. As an editor and a member of the Wikipedia community, I'm interested in what everyone has to say, including on the day an article is on the Main Page. Sometimes I'm personally skeptical, but I at least try to push aside my skepticism and think about whether there are edits I can make that address the criticisms. For instance, in response to one discussion about BLP issues, even though I was thinking "I've heard this before", I reviewed blurbs I've written to see if I was being careful enough ... turns out I wasn't, and I made some edits accordingly. But at the same time, people will be expecting me to act like a scheduling coord in October, and we'll have to figure out together what that means. If someone makes a comment like "Seems largely promotional" and there doesn't seem to be support for that in the discussion, then people might expect me to blank the discussion at the point where it appears that nothing's going to happen. The blanking part is routine, and also an important part of supporting the informal discussion rules at ERRORS. I'm open to discussing the pros and cons of blanking any time; in the meantime, I'll just try to copy what's been done before. - Dank (push to talk) 16:46, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

If an article is claimed to be "largely promotional" it should be easy for the complainant to point out where it fails NPOV. If no such failures can be found, the complaint should be ignored. —Kusma (talk) 17:45, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

A tentative schedule for December 2023 may be found here. This is not intended to foreclose further TFA/Rs, nor to stop !voting in the various TFA/Rs that have already been submitted. Scheduling will start in a few days. Wehwalt (talk) 19:49, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Would it be possible to include a piece of Wikipedia history, in this case WP:UuU, on the Main Page, either on January 15th (Wikipedia's anniversary) or January 16th (the UuU edit's anniversary)? Although this is more niche due to the fact that it's no longer Wikipedia's oldest edit, it is still an interesting piece of Wikipedian history. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:35, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I guess there are a couple of questions here ... whether that page will appear on the Main Page in some form, and whether we're going to kick the January 15 TFA off the Main Page to make room for it. I'm guessing whoever has the Jan 15 TFA wouldn't be happy about that. If you want it to appear somewhere in some form, Talk:Main Page would probably be the right place to talk about it. - Dank (push to talk) 21:47, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

It would probably take a RfC to fill the TFA space with something else. While we can do things like run multiple FAs in one blurb, we don't have the authority to run something other than a FA. Wehwalt (talk) 22:09, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

So it's not a TFA, doesn't describe the actual the oldest edit, not an article, and not a 'round' anniversary? Personally, I don't think it's worthy enough to break the rules. Stephen 22:24, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

It sounds to me like something that should be brought to the attention of WP:OTD for their consideration. Wehwalt (talk) 22:56, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think I agree that this is a good idea. There's a place for obscure in jokes that even most wikipedians aren't going to understand, but I don't think that place is the TFA slot. Hog Farm _Talk 23:12, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

In my view, WP:UuU isn't a suitable candidate for TFA. Schwede66 08:18, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 08:28, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Here's a hypothetical question (and I'd prefer hypothetical answers rather than dragging any particular editor into this). If a person who hasn't been involved with or even discussed a particular article nominates that article at TFA-pending (for one of the months I'll be scheduling), and the FAC nominator(s) would prefer to put off a TFA appearance until some time in the future when it's less likely to generate heated reactions, is this a situation where I'm allowed to remove the nomination from TFAP (with an apology and an explanation)? I don't mind if they nominate the article at the proper time at the requests page ... that's not my call ... but I'm not really comfortable with the TFA-pending page being used this way, since it's not built to facilitate discussion. - Dank (push to talk) 20:36, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I see no reason why the scheduling TFA coord can't remove nominations here they don't think should be selected for TFA without a discussion nomination, and the articles can then be sent over to the main requests page if desired. Both entries added in this diff by Sheila1988 are bad ideas in my opinion; the Columbine one is at WP:TFANO for a reason (we probably need a WP:TFANEVER for stuff like that one and Jihad (song) that aren't suitable to run at TFA until the world is different). I also don't see the wisdom of running an article describing a satire of Trump on a day meant to correlated with the Republican National Convention; at least in my opinion we should not be running hooks directly related to an active political cycle or election during the hottest part of the election unless we're going to like we did on US election day in '08 and run a split TFA of standard biographies of both major candidates. A better choice for the RNC date, if we're going to run something for that, would be to rerun 1880 Republican National Convention after a content re-review (since it's from 2007). Hog Farm _Talk 00:15, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

As one of the people who helped bring the Trump satire to FA (albeit a long while ago) and objected to running that article, I agree that the 1880 RNC article is a far better fit for that date, assuming it's been re-reviewed. I do not see the pressing need to run the Trump satire page on TFA, at least not within the next year or so, but it would be better to hold off on that until Trump is out of politics, which I don't see happening in his lifetime. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:37, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm with Hog Farm (on both). In general, your job is to ... do what you have to do to keep things working optimally, and that means to keep FA writers wanting to keep writing FAs rather than see their work used on the main page in ways that make them want to give up. And make the ERRORS people scream. When you see a bad choice, use your Coord discretion and remove it. If someone screams about a Coord decision, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:23, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

FWIW Dan, I trust you specifically to make good decisions about such things and keep TFA operating as well as possible. If there is a consensus on TFANO, then I think that should stand indefinitely until a consensus arises that it is ok to run that article as TFA. And that consensus would have to result from an actual nomination of the article for the specific date and subsequent discussion, not via listing it at TFAP. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:44, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Kind of you to say that, and your suggestion does make sense. - Dank (push to talk) 02:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I would have no problem with any of my suggestions being removed by someone else - they're only suggestions, i'm not going to be offended if they're ignored or deleted. However I still think "Donald Trump" is a good choice for a topical article. Sheila1988 (talk) 12:21, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I would like to ask editors with experience in TFA to look at WP:HD#Misleading image formerly used for illustrating a FA (more specifically, TSventon's reply). (Edit: archived here.) Thank you. Janhrach (talk) 14:08, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

The image appears in (at most): Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 17, 2023, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 2023 (by transclusion from the first link), and a page in FAC-space. After an article has run at WP:Today's featured article on the Main Page, these pages serve as archive pages only. I don't have any preference on how people treat images in archive pages, as long as there's some reasonable consistency. - Dank (push to talk) 14:25, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Dank, the image has been identified as misleading on the article talk page and Janhrach has requested deletion. A Commons editor has argued that the image should be kept as it is used in Wikipedia. What is best for TFA? Possible options include keeping the image as a record of what appeared on TFA, removing the image from the archive as poor quality and deleting the image and leaving a red link in the archive pages. I presume that this doesn't happen often as poor images will usually be identified during the FA process. TSventon (talk) 15:17, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Again: I don't have any preference on how people treat images in archive pages, as long as there's some reasonable consistency. Since they're archive pages, it's not a burning issue for me; readers won't usually see these pages. - Dank (push to talk) 15:24, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Like Dank, I'm concerned about the precedent. I would suggest continuing with the deletion discussion and explaining that the image is only in use in an archival page. That should be the first resort. If it is deleted, it wouldn't be the first time an image used in a TFA was later deleted. If it isn't deleted, then we can look at it again.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

My opinion is that we should disregard "the" precedent (if any) and we should instead try to build a consesus and make the outcome visible on some TFA-related page afterwards.

As for my opinion on image removal, I think we should not modify the archives, as archives generally should not be modified for purely aesthetic reasons. Another argument is that if we keep an image redlink in the archive, it is obvious that the image was deleted for some reason. On the other hand, if the redlink is removed, the past presence of an image is not obvious at all – information is concealed. Janhrach (talk) 19:32, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

There does not seem much opposition to my proposal, so it is time to move into more specific matters.

As far as I know, the only policy mentioning file redlinks is WP:RED, but its phrasing makes it irrelevant here – it refers to redlinks in articles or creating redlinks. What is of concern is however CAT:MISSFILE. Janhrach (talk) 20:03, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Today I remembered that CommonsDelinker exists, which means that there is a strong precedent for removal of image redlinks, so I withdraw this proposal. Janhrach (talk) 20:41, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

For Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 22, 2023, click the map of Antarctica, just once not twice. The left and right sides of the map (east and west are confusing in Antarctica) are both labeled "SOUTH RN OCEAN". The E is missing. Similarly, the Antarctic Peninsula is labeled as "ANTARCTI ENI SU A", missing 4 letters. The top of the map says "K NG H ON VI HA " but "KONG HÂKON VII HAV" was intended (I'm not sure about the  special character).

Now click the map again. You're now in + mode, and the missing letters are no longer missing.

I tried this on two computers, one Windows 11 and one Windows 10. Microsoft Edge. Same results. Art LaPella (talk) 07:24, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

The problem doesn't happen when I switch to Google Chrome. Art LaPella (talk) 07:40, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm on Chrome and it happens for me. Stephen 07:43, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's strange. It will be an svg rendering issue for the preview version, as the full version is complete and crisp. I have no idea where to flag it, WP:VPT perhaps? Stephen 07:42, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

When I open the svg on mobile Chrome, the issue appears. Browsing through the revisions, I found that the issue was introduced in the third version of the file. Could anybody reproduce this? Janhrach (talk) 08:29, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

 Note: I misunderstood this thread, but the actual svg (not the pre-rendered png version) displays wrongly, as I said. Janhrach (talk) 09:41, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

oh, wow, that's strange, Art LaPella. nice catch. i was wondering if it was just a one-time error when the png preview file was created, so i purged the preview files (by clicking the button on this page on commons), and it looks like that fixed the issue for me. please let me know if the error is still there for you. note that you may have to clear your own local cache of the file for the new png preview file to appear. dying (talk) 08:59, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, purging on commons and then forcing a browser page refresh on en.wiki has fixed it for me, thanks dying. Stephen 10:12, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

 Fixed Art LaPella (talk) 18:13, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

There is a discussion here which may be of interest to some members of this project. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Today's FA's blurb says "Commander of the British Empire". This is a common usage mistake - it should be "Commander of the Order of the British Empire". I have corrected the article lede accordingly but it would be good for the blurb to be amended too. @WP:TFA coordinators Atchom (talk) 17:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I've addressed it, editing the blurb elsewhere so as not to lengthen it. Wehwalt (talk) 18:55, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

whoops! the erroneous instance in the blurb is entirely my fault. thanks for catching that, Atchom. also, thanks to Wehwalt for the quick fix. dying (talk) 18:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Just a quick note that April is filling up fast. There are 13 TFA requests at the pending page; April 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 21, 22, 24, 25, and 29 are already taken. The April 1 (April Fool's Day) request seems fine, but it's not uncommon for several articles to get suggested and voted on. Anyone who has a burning desire to get something date-relevant on the calendar for April might want to go ahead and sign up on the pending page. - Dank (push to talk) 18:20, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Also: I'm going to be doing the scheduling about a week early this month, so if you have requests, please get them in soon. - Dank (push to talk) 21:51, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

For a discussion about April 1, see Talk:Main Page#Order of Brothelyngham. - Dank (push to talk) 02:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Quite disappointing how much Today's Featured Article is basically ignoring countries other than the UK and the US, with a sprinkling of other western countries included. What about African topics? What about one of our biggest audiences in India? What about allowing readers from English-speaking countries to learn something about the rest of the world? AusLondonder (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah. But, if people don't write those articles, what ya gonna do? Also see: WP:WTAF. ——Serial Number 54129 11:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

We've got quite a few articles relevant to Australia and New Zealand coming up soon, and Flag of Canada and Maple syrup will appear on July 1 and 2, if that helps. - Dank (push to talk) 13:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: Way to suggest that Aussies, NZers and Canadians aren't from English-speaking countries... :D ^[FBDB] ——Serial Number 54129 14:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

As Serial says, this being TFA the coordinators are restricted to scheduling articles which have achieved featured status. That said, nominations for May are currently open and articles nominated or on the potentials page include a historical Indian empire, the Israeli law on citizenship, a tropical storm in Mexico, an Italian handbook on bomb making, a WW2 Japanese convoy to New Guinea, and a song by a Filipino band. Any editors who feel that any particular featured article deserves a day on the main page in May are encouraged to nominate it here. Any editors who feel that there are a lack of articles at featured level for any particular topic or area are strongly encouraged to work on improving some articles from that area and nominate them for featured status here. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:38, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

There is also a set o' pages up at WP:FAC that might join the available pool if they get reviews or work done. They include a Chilean volcano, a monastery in Kyiv, a fossil from Europe, a Palestinian dynasty, a Mexican bird, a Filipino band, a Chinese church, a Medieval European nobleman, a Yugoslav submarine, a Greek philosopher, a construction accident in Singapore and a German brand. A big part of the reason why TFA is so English-dominated is b/c the articles that can be nominated tend to be about American or British topics, so one has to work on the non-English ones. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:59, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, FAs on these areas are relatively rare, and tend to be on the MP really quickly after promotion (like other topics such as art), so your basic premise that they are "ignored" is not only wrong, but the reverse of the truth. If you look at the 717 articles at Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page you will see this. Johnbod (talk) 17:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Can only repeat the above: people have to actually write the articles if they are to be featured, but this is the English Wikipedia, so it's just more likely that our pool of editors is knowledgable about subjects related to the Anglosphere. We'd all want more articles about more diverse subjects, but then we need the people who are able to write it. I'm saying that as someone from a non-Anglophonic country. FunkMonk (talk) 23:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)