Wikipedia talk:Featured articles

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Featured articles page.

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pre-12/2003 and renaming poll Origins dispute to January 1, 2005 to January 1, 2006 to May 1, 2006 to August 7, 2006 to January 31, 2007 to August 23, 2007 to September 19, 2007 to April 10, 2008 to September 30, 2008 to July 27, 2009 to April 2010 to October 2010 to September 2011 from September 2011

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Golden Sun now links to the series of the games (which is a GA), not the first video game (Golden Sun (Video Game)) in the series (which is a FA). They were switched in 2019 as per the discussion on the talk page on the series.

Done - Realmaxxver (talk) 14:00, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A featured article has been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lewis (baseball) (2nd nomination). Therapyisgood (talk) 01:51, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was planning on taking this article to FAR to be de-listed as a FA before the AfD was initiated. The article strays so far off of topic that it is not about Lewis, but instead the details of the one game Lewis played in, leading to several WP:COATRACK instances. This brings into question the FAC which do not specify sticking on topic. #4 is the closest item: "Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style." Can this be modified to ensure a well-written article is actually about the main subject? Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 21:16, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make FA and GA icons in articles more noticeable #2. Dege31 (talk) 23:32, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

At WP:GA there is a counter set up to total how many are in each section. Would it be possible to set up something similar here? Hog Farm _Talk 01:46, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi HF, is the GA counter automated now? I remember it was all manual but been a long time since I reviewed at GAN... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:09, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's automated ... if not then I've been screwing stuff up over there pretty badly. I'm in the process of trying to create an update of Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_statistics#Jan_1,_2020, and the two methods I know of are 1) manual counting and 2) copying everything into Microsoft Excel, deleting out all the headers, and seeing how many rows there are. I'm two off and frankly don't feel like going through all of the methods with every single section. Hog Farm _Talk 02:48, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm: I added wikicode I borrowed from Wikipedia:Good articles/Engineering and technology so it automatically calculates the number of articles in each section. The only problem that I can tell is that it automatically adds dashes between articles, so we have both dots and dashes separating articles. We could fix that problem by removing the asterisks in front of the article links. AmericanLemming (talk) 23:16, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Save diff: [1] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:39, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I previewed removing the asterix before each article title, and that really messes up the formatting. I also tried replacing the wikcode from the Good article page by creating Template:Featured Article subsection, which is based on Template:Featured List subsection. I replaced “{{#invoke:Good Articles|subsection|}}” with "{{Featured Article subsection|}}", and it worked beautifully for the first 3,668 articles before it gave me a Wikipedia:Template limits#Post-expand include size alert and hid the remaining 2,355 articles (everything after "Physics and astronomy"). I tried to get around that by creating Template:Featured Article subsection2 and using that from "Politics and government" through "Warfare", but that didn't help at all.

In short, I think that if we want to automatically calculate the number of FAs in each section, we may have to live with the somewhat unsightly dots and dashes between articles. I'm copying User:PresN from the Featured list project to ask for ideas, seeing as the featured list project automatically calculates the number of list in each section with "{{Featured List subsection|}}". There are currently 3,873 featured lists, so I'm not sure why there isn't an issue with Wikipedia:Template limits#Post-expand include size. AmericanLemming (talk) 03:36, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing this! Hog Farm _Talk 03:50, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@AmericanLemming: Hmm, if I check the source for WP:FL, it's telling me "postexpandincludesize":{"value":1375072,"limit":2097152}, so, 1.3 million out of 2 million, a pretty big gap. The problem seems to be {{FA/BeenOnMainPage}} - y'all have 5200 calls to it on the page, and WP:FL doesn't use a similar template to track that. If I strip out those template calls, the FA page drops to "postexpandincludesize":{"value":884087,"limit":2097152}}, or 800,000, far away from the limit. (WPFL has way more little subsection counters, so it makes sense that we're higher there). I don't know enough about what parts of templates are expensive to know if there's any edits possible to the Featured Article subsection template to make it cheaper, but if not, then you won't be able to use it and have 5000 calls to FA/BeenOnMainPage. --PresN 05:10, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How about having a template "NotBeenOnMainPage" instead, calling that for the much smaller number for which that's the case, and getting used to the reversed display appearance on WP:FA? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:34, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: If I create a template, would it be worthwhile to make a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests so that the switch doesn't have to be made manually? Hog Farm _Talk 15:07, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might be simpler than that. The wikitext looks like this: * {{FA/BeenOnMainPage|[[Harris Theater (Chicago)]]}}* [[Harry F. Sinclair House]] so a search and replace of "{{FA/Been" and "]]}}", " [[" and "]][carriage return]" might work -- it could be done in a text editor, so long as you are careful about the order in which it's done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:06, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably above my skill level. Also, I didn't realize it was possible to find & replace in any of the edit modes. Hog Farm _Talk 18:18, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I typically do things like that in a text editor. If you get the new template working I can try to do the update for you if you like. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:13, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Hawkeye7, because if we make this change, it'll affect the operations of FACbot. Hog Farm _Talk 19:26, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is why I typically stripped out the extra via Find/Replace in Word, and then moved to Excel for the counting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:32, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is AWESOME to see all of you working to address this issue, as the Word to Excel manipulations I had to do in the past to come up with the numbers was quite time consuming as HF has now discovered! This is the kind of leadership and taking the bull by the horns I knew we would see from HF, following on the same from Mike Christie, where we can actually have data-based discussions. :) :) I agree that whatever can be done to make the numbers appear could take precedence over other formatting issues. I love the idea of switching to "NotBeenOnMainPage", to shorten the overall effect, but if that is done, please remember to fix the green tool that displays the "been on main page", eg at User:SandyGeorgia/monobook.css. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see Whitehawk Camp is in archaeology but Knap Hill is in geography; I don't know which is better but I think they should be in the same section. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:38, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, both should be in archaeology. As you've no doubt seen, I just looked at the FA list & found a number of ridiculous misplacings, mostly art called archaeology/architecture. The whole list could probably do with a checkover. Johnbod (talk) 16:45, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I went ahead and moved Knap Hill. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:53, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't Fort Ticonderoga below in warfare as much or more than its current placement of architecture/archaeology? Hog Farm _Talk 17:10, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, more. Most of the article is on it's active history, & though abandoned, it seems to have needed "restoration" rather than excavation. Johnbod (talk) 17:33, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an automatic way to generate an alphabetical list of all current featured articles? Does such a list already exist somewhere on Wikipedia? Or would it have to be done manually? Thank you! Ganesha811 (talk) 15:46, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Does Category:Featured articles suffice? If nothing else is available, you can put the whole page into Excel and sort ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:56, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that'll work, thank you. Ganesha811 (talk) 18:26, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, if the current article is featured in another language, a star will appear next to the corresponding entry in the Languages list in the sidebar to let you know. - I believe a different colored star appears if the article is a GA in a different language. See, for instance, the grey star next to the Chinese language link at Battle of Marais des Cygnes. Should we consider making a wording change here? Hog Farm _Talk 19:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why was Space Shuttle Challenger disaster placed in History, rather than Engineering and technology? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:08, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@FAC coordinators:  ??? Queried a week ago, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:12, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's Gog's promotion, so I can't answer that. I don't have an opinion which section is more appropriate. (t · c) buidhe 11:16, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All other space stuff is in Eng & tech (the issue came up when the nominator was confused by where to find it at WP:FFA [2] as this is a re-promoted FA that needed to be noted at FFA). That is, it was in Eng & tech at FFA (because that is how it was classified in its first go-round as FA), but the nominator thought it was not there, as they were looking in History, since it was put in History here. FA and FFA need to stay on the same page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:41, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I neither knew nor care how the article was previously classified. IMO while Space Shuttle Challenger may be engineering, Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was an incident and so belongs in History. If the FAC nominator disagrees I am happy to discuss it with them. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:24, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I hope you are having a nice day. Thank you, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:28, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Currently the category Category:Featured articles as 6,042 members, while this page states that there are 6,035 FAs. (t · c) buidhe 10:27, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I used to have to put them in a spreadsheet to find the problem, but maybe DrKay knows an automated way to check. This usually means someone stuck an FA on an article without going through FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:14, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PS, I see 6040 ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:16, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, it's a separate category Category:Wikipedia_featured_articles that has 6,042 members. That categorizes based on the talk pages while Category:Featured articles is based on the article space. (t · c) buidhe 11:19, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the three Nikki just delisted would not have been botified yet, so would still have the star on the article (and the talk page) even though they have been removed from this page (pending FACbot), while anything just promoted may similarly not yet have the star. So, unsure if there is actually a discrepancy; have to do the numbers after the bot has been through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:21, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Buidhe Dr Kay just incremented the count based on this addition; it is quite confusing how y’all add articles in separate edits from incrementing the tally without indicating which article the tally applies to. Perhaps either do them in one edit, or use better edit summaries. DrKay seems to be indicating that you missed incrementing the tally, but I suggest stepping back through. I did them in one edit together (add articles and change tally in one edit), but considering the size of the page now, perhaps better edit summaries is an alternate solution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:30, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The article was added but the tally was not updated. There are now either 6036 or 6039 articles in each category. This will correct itself when the bot runs. There are two rogue pages in Category:Wikipedia featured articles, which are Template talk:Article history/Archive 5 and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/Archive 4. This appears to be because they contain transclusions of article history sandboxes. DrKay (talk) 11:42, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You are awesome; thanks to a FAR Coord for helping keep all FA process pages sorted! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:39, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The bot has run, and I'm getting 6035 in the Category, while the page lists 6036. ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:54, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I recalculated the 6,036 count at the FA page, and it seems to be right. Hog Farm _Talk 01:06, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So who's missing their star on their article? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:07, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's also possible that a FA could be listed in two places on the WP:FA page. I know there's been some messing around with the subcategories. Hog Farm _Talk 01:09, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I trust the 6036 number based on WP:FAS. Last month ended at 6,029, there have been 20 promoted, and 13 demoted = 6036. FAS always tallies to the archives. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:11, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, no duplinks there. So there is a missing one. Hog Farm _Talk 01:12, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

HF, sometimes there is vandalism in articlehistory, so add Category:Article history templates with errors to your userspace somewhere to also watch for that. Unfortunately, that's not it this time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:14, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know any way to look for the missing one besides putting the whole mess into a spreadsheet and sorting. That's what I used to have to do, but I think it's possible to do it smarter these days. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:17, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure. Might be a Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) question. Hog Farm _Talk 01:19, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

DrKay always manages to sort it, but I hate to keep pinging :) There have been bells going off all day ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:22, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've developed a way to determine when the error crept in - the internet archive wayback machine archives the category page, so I can compare the counts on the two pages. Matches up at this point in late August. Hog Farm _Talk 01:23, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh ... I was away for many months so was not watching WP:FAS; maybe AmericanLemming saw an oddity somewhere. I'll go check the archives to see if they match FAS numbers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:25, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think we got off in October, if I'm doing this right. Hog Farm _Talk 01:27, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering if it was related to the archives falling off due to template limits, but I counted them manually and the tally is right. I will step back through the diffs for Sept and Oct at FA next. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:29, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

HF, I don't think I was editing here ... do you know what this is about? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:31, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to be a correct edit - Gog added Cyclone Berguitta, upped the counter from 5977 to 5978, and then dinged the counter down with a later edit. DrKay's edit fixed the count. Hog Farm _Talk 01:38, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Going diff by diff, Gog did update the count when adding [3] Berguitta, then updated the count, then reverted self on the count, then DrKay added the count again. So I think that's ok. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:38, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Echo :O SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:38, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oopsie .. but then ... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_articles&diff=next&oldid=1042963210 ... I wasn't around, what happened with Berguitta? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:40, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

this is what happened. Hog Farm _Talk 01:41, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. I'll leave this to y'all then. DrKay will sort it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:42, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If worst comes to worst, I can go through manually and try to find the missing one. Hog Farm _Talk 01:44, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I give up ... better to wait and let DrKay use his fancy tools. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:41, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm about to give up, too. I was trying to compare a month's archive log to the category, but because of the darned default sort, they aren't actually in alphabetical order in the categories. Hog Farm _Talk 01:53, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am wracking my brain over whether I messed something up with Doug Ring or with the Engineering School, but those numbers were all done, and the stars already removed, so I can't think of anything I might have changed. DrKay will find it. Sometimes a vandal, or well-meaning but clueless editor, comes along and just removes a star. I don't know how DrKay detects those, but he does. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:06, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Should be 6036 now. Not a vandal, an error: [4]. I use AWB to create alphabetical lists of each category and then the two lists can be compared in a word processing or spreadsheet program that tracks changes or does text comparison to identify the discrepancy. DrKay (talk) 08:05, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks DrKay. I hope DocWatson42 is aware that they removed a featured article star in that edit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:38, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also, after DocWatson24’s edit removed the star, a bot changed assessment on talk:[5] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:43, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't—my intention was to move it to top matter per MOS:LAYOUT, but apparently there was so much going on in that edit that I forgot to do so. I apologize. —DocWatson42 (talk) 14:12, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Understood … just wanted to let you know. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:47, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone tell me the correct process to nominate an article for deselection as an FPA. Thanks. Today's Jaguar article has a misleading over-saturated poor quality image in the infobox which a group of editors voted to keep in preference to one of my Commons FPs. Majority voting is fine, but their decison devalues the article in my opinion. Charlesjsharp (talk) 16:42, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Charlesjsharp. Yes, I can help you with that, but first some things you should be aware of. First, it is highly unlikely that a Featured article would be delisted over one image, and second, we don’t submit articles for reconsideration of their featured status until after a specified wait period from when problems are first raised on the article’s talk page. We also don’t submit articles for re-assessment right after they have been on the mainpage (WP:TFA, Today’s featured article) on the assumption that issues are likely to be corrected as a result of the article running on the mainpage and being seen by more people.

That said, the place we re-assess FA status relative to the criteria is WP:FAR. Please take a careful look at the instructions, and be sure to raise your concerns first on the article talk page. What makes a Featured picture is not highly relevant to what makes a Featured article, so the concern you have raised here is not really sufficient to suggest a Featured article review is warranted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:12, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]