Template talk:Article history/Archive 6

Test cases
See /testcases.
 * By the way guys, using genuine good/featured topic names in the ftname and ft2name parameters could potentially result in a topic going from good to featured by mistake, so I've changed the names to fictional ones - rst20xx (talk) 01:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Current status Q
How does one mark a GA that is currently rated A class, such as HMS Speedy (1782). Putting  produces a ? instead of "A class". Mjroots (talk) 17:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think A-class makes it onto this template because it is a WikiProject specific rating and not a Wikipedia-wide system which this template records. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see why that means it can't be a supported parameter for those projects that use A class. Mjroots (talk) 05:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Because it doesn't make sense to say "this is an A-class article". It only makes sense to say "WikiProject X has rated this article as A-class". &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:44, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Feedback requested re: possible addition of page view statistic to template
This idea may be completely absurd/impossible, but any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 22:46, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Garish style changes
I submit that the recent change to enlarge and render in loud green the "Milestones in this article's history" text renders the template ugly and visually confusing, and I can't see a rationale for it. I propose it be reverted to the longstanding plain text version. Skomorokh  21:48, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above POV. Revert until a new font style achieves consensus. Adabow (talk · contribs) 03:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted the style changes per this edit protected note as per WP:BRD. This is a heavily used template and should have been the subject of some discussion or notification before changes. Woody (talk) 10:46, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I would not have thought that spacing and color changes would be a big deal, but apparently so. Anyway the rationale is as follows:
 * This is a major information template. The history table especially, replaces all templates documenting past AFDs, past promotions/demotions, past DYKs. The problem is that it's not obvious. It needs to be more visible because the actual material it covers is hidden until the user clicks on "show". A user quickly reviewing the talk page to see if there have been past actions of these kinds, will not see these actions unless their eye is drawn to it. An example is Talk:Santorum (neologism), where this is one of many talk page header templates, all with the same style, all black on dull yellow -- the eye simply does not pick this out and it should. Hence visibility is an issue.
 * The title is uninformative and misleading. "Article milestones" is unhelpful. Even if noticed among the many other visually similar templates, it doesn't make clear what it contains. "Milestones in article's history" explains the likely contents of the "show" box.
 * The spacing is poor. The header is followed by column titles followed by column contents, in a manner that is not clear. Spacing helps the eye to intuitively identify that there is a table and which text is header or contents. This was all lacking.
 * The column headers are insufficiently clear. Our audience here is inexperienced editors, not just experienced ones. "Process" is a lot less clear to a simple editor (ie most of our editors) than the everyday English "What happened?".
 * Templates exist to help users. These issues would be helpful to less experienced editors, and to non-editors directed to talk page points by article templates, if improved. At present they are not visually clear. It is hard to see anyone seriously objecting to a bit of spacing around a table, or a clearer heading, or the like. The sole comment before this was approval of the idea albeit a question over the color. A stand-out color is a very common way to help the eye navigate to important matters. We use color in navboxes on article pages, in a range of colors from grey to blue to yellow to green, without dissent.


 * Perhaps we could find a way to gain these benefits while avoiding concerns over "garish" colors? FT2 (Talk 11:16, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Using the template sandbox, here is an example of the changes (original on top, FT2's on bottom):

I have to say that the colour jars with me too. It doesn't fit with the template, nor does the Big text. I can see the logic in "milestone's in article's history" and "what happened", (with the proviso that this isn't simple English Wikipedia and our readers/editors do have some modicum of intelligence. If you think it is too complicated, then fair enough. I think the spacing just adds unneccessary white space, far from making my mind "intuitively identify that there is a table and which text is header or contents" it just makes me think "why is there all this excess space at the bottom?" I can understand the spacing at the top but there is nothing like ramming it home with BIG text, underlining and spacing. The excess space at the bottom is just that, excessive and unneccessary. The whole point of this template is to remove excess talkpage clutter and reduce the space needed. "Navboxes... without dissent" It isn't without dissent, it is simply those who support the colours shout louder than those who don't, see Template talk:Navbox for examples of some dissent. So, in summary the colour is the main sticking point. Woody (talk) 12:39, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Concur on all points, and thanks for restoring the longstanding version.  Skomorokh   12:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The color isn't a major point for me. My concern is that as a major template listing key information about the page's history, it's very badly designed from a perspective of users and eye cues. It is in the same color scheme as all other templates, the heading (which is the only visible hint that this is where such data is to be found) is small and midway down and not at all obvious, there is no visual cuing whatsoever. I'm less worried about the color, other than color being one way we can draw the eye to an important item. Font size, spacing, and wording that makes it more obvious are also important.


 * As the main issue cited is the use of color, and I'm not hung up on color so long as some kind of good visual cue is provided to draw readers' eyes, perhaps someone might post a suggestion of a way to meet these goals without using a color scheme that is seen as extreme. FT2 (Talk 14:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not too crazy on the color either, but I did think FT2's changes were very beneficial, and I could live with green in the name of usability. Can we at least find a color that will work, even if we don't change the font size? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:34, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with you for the reasons outlined above. Just because someone claims that it increases usability doesn't make it so.
 * The whole point about the template is that it harmonised the plethora of talkpage templates. I'm sure you could find a large number of editors who think a template should be elevated above others on a talkpage. Talk:Santorum (neologism) is an extreme example and a hideous page that does a disservice to our readers, but changing this template won't change that. It would just make that page uglier and even less coherent. After doing a wee bit of testing, and given what I said above, without the colour and the excessive space at the bottom then I don't see an issue with it. That said, we really are doing our readers a disservice by having the "click [show]" in the title. There are a large number of boxes that use this across the wiki, we don't need to explain to our readers that clicking "show" will show stuff. To me, it decreases the eye cue, as you put it, as the title bar is now far too congested. Woody (talk) 11:03, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree with Woody. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 12:18, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

New cat
As WP:TFL will be up-and-running soon, could code be added for FLs that do not have the  parameter set to be added to Category:Featured lists that have not appeared on the main page. If any other coding changes are needed for the commencement of TFL then please execute those, too. Adabow (talk · contribs) 11:01, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I added the editprotected template. ۞   Tb hotch ™ &  (ↄ),  Problems with my English?  05:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. If you've got the specific code I'll add it, but we need specifics. Thanks, Woody (talk) 09:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

was pointed out on my talk page. That implementation has bugs - the obvious one being what happens when a FL with a mainpage appearance becomes FFL. Please also note some other changes to make at User_talk:Gimmetoo. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Do you have examples of these bugs? As I see it, if an FL becomes FFL, the worst thing that happens is that it will turn "list" into "article". This can easily be fixed by including FFL in the checks.  —  Edokter  ( talk ) — 15:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_list. Just switching from list to article is a bit of a problem since it involves a link which I think would end up a redlink. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Please explain. What link would end up in a redlink?  — Edokter  ( talk ) — 16:04, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If "list" were to become "article" in displayed text, it would probably also switch the "today's featured list/date" link. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:13, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That is the intended effect. Anyway, the template now has split code for pre- and post 2011-06-13 featured articles/lists.  — Edokter  ( talk ) — 18:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Four Award?
I noticed there was a flag for the Four Award, however when it is set to | four=yes on St. Michael's Cathedral, Qingdao, I don't see anything in the template that actually indicates it received one. Why is there a flag for it if there's no corresponding "This article received a Four Award" type notice? ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 06:46, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It just generates a category . AH mostly incorporated text from pre-existing template notices (FA, GA, DYK, PR). There isn't any "four" template notice, and I would say there's a reasonable argument that since "four" is a collection of other processes, there probably shouldn't be a separate template notice for it. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:18, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. When I first proposed adding four I mentioned that it would be possible to add something like "This article has received a Four Award", but it's probably not desirable to do so for the reasons Gimme mentions above and because FOUR is a minor project which I don't think has gotten widespread attention from the community yet. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 17:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info! ɳorɑfʈ  Talk! 15:03, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Identifying FAs that are former GAs
Is there any easy way to use this template to identify (e.g., put into a category) featured articles which were previously good articles? What I have in mind is something that adds articles to a category if their currentstatus is FA, they have been on DYK (i.e., if dykdate has content), and they were once GAs. The last part is the hard part; as far as I can tell, I only see two ways to do this, and both look pretty tedious: I'm asking about this in relation to the WP:Four award stuff (see User talk:Rjanag), which is a task not important enough to warrant going through the massive trouble that would be needed to do solution #1. Solution #2 wouldn't be a lot of work, but it would make a horrible mess of the code. Is there any simpler, less verbose way to do this? r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 17:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Create a new currentstatus, something like FA/FGA, and then have to go and update the status for thousands of articles
 * 2) Check every single actionN up to action18 with "" to see if the article passed any GANs in the past
 * I would try to avoid changing the currenstatus coding. There are a couple instances of the method #2 in the template coding, but it seems best to avoid that, too, when possible. FAs that are former GAs can be handled in ArticleHistory/output, which formats each line in the collapsible table but also has currentstatus as a passed-in parameter. This approach is already in-use to generate categories for former FAs that were re-promoted, and similar. If the dykdate parameter were passed to /output as well, it could generate the DYK/FA/formerGA category you mention. What's worse - another parameter passed to /output and 4-6 more lines of nested switches there, or a block of nested ifeqs in AH? Gimmetoo (talk) 21:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I looked at it a bit but I'm still not sure I understand how to do what you are suggesting; I might need an example to figure it out. So, if I'm going to be the one to implement this, I would do the nested ifeqs; it's messy but I could always put that block off by itself so it doesn't confuse any other areas of the code. If someone else wants to do the other method (or point me in the right direction to figure out how to do it), I don't mind that either. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 01:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's how I think it would work. Code in /output that looks like  |GAN|gan|GAC|gac= would become something like  |GAN|gan|GAC|gac= and the code using /output would add the dykdate parameter to place 7  | This would need some testing, naturally. Gimmetoo (talk) 00:52, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Extra spaces
Just wanted to let an admin know that the recent edit to the above template is causing an extra whitespace to appear after the template, in headers on article talk pages. I think it is related to the spaces involving the "include" and "noinclude" tags on the template. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:24, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * problem now fixed. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:39, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Withdrawn nomination
Marking a nomination as withdrawn (and still linking to the review) would be useful. —Designate (talk) 05:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * For what process? At FAC, nominations are archived and linked in artilehistory if there are any significant comments, even if the nomination is withdrawn. Do you have an example for what you're requesting?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 06:16, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

New Categories
I realize that the article history mostly deals with the status of articles, but given the presence of the AFD and related categories, it seems like there may be a place for listing other milestones like mediation and arbitration. Does this make sense? aprock (talk) 20:41, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

PNG => SVG
Hello, the format of Wikipedia logo is PNG. The same logo exists in SVG format. Please change Wikipedia-logo.png to Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg. Nodulation (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done  It Is Me Here  t / c 11:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Missing AFD case
A missing result case from AfD (probably any XfD) is withdrawn with the "Result" column output: Withdrawn (kept). Example case: WP:Articles for deletion/The golden cue. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 05:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Facepalm
This article has had two AfDs and a redirect for discussion. . . is there any way to include the discussion in the template as well?--~TPW 18:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Bad year in Talk:Prolog
The instance of this template in Talk:Prolog, near the top of the article, has 2011 as the year, despite the year being 2006 in the talk page's source. Calcdude84se (talk) 02:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * #time has a bug with dates formatted as 10 October, 2011, with a comma between the month and year. See Template_talk:ArticleHistory/Archive_4. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:39, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

End dates/start dates
I am rather confused. The template documentation instructs using the dates that a particular process had ended, whereas the Fermi paradox example seems to use the dates on which the various processes were initiated. On a similar note, are the oldids meant to be of the article at the start or at the end of the process? Please can someone clarify this?  It Is Me Here  t / c 13:11, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Should be end-dates and end-version oldids. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

category change per CfD
In this discussion, we decided to split Category:Wikipedia good articles on historical figures into Category:Wikipedia good articles on politicians (McCarthy and Washington) and Category:Wikipedia good articles on royalty (the rest). I can't figure out how to adjust this template so that this split is possible. Does anyone here know how to do that?--Mike Selinker (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ by . &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:29, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Nick Drake
The Nick Drake article was the featured article on 18 and 19 January. Currently, a workround has to be done to show this in the ArticleHistory. Is there any way that the template can be tweaked to allow the use of  to allow this? (I tried it but it don't work atm) Mjroots (talk) 08:46, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No reason to add a parameter for this unusual situation. See Talk:Barack Obama. Gimmetoo (talk) 09:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I suggest that the fact that more than one FA has been on the main page more than once would mean that there is a need for such a parameter. Mjroots (talk)
 * The intention and practice is one appearance per article. Two exceptions do not make a need. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No need- it can be handled the same as Obama. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

A class
The A class note says "This article has passed an A-Class review." where "A-class review" links to WikiProject_Military_history/Review. This is obselete; it should now link to WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class review. If someone could change this, it would be much appreciated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:42, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That note is actually in Template:WPMILHIST. I applied the change there. Ucucha (talk) 12:10, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Error in template
What's causing the error evident at "Talk:Wednesbury unreasonableness in Singapore law"? — SMUconlaw (talk) 23:41, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Template is inconsistent as to whether a blank actionn is to be treated in the same way as one that is omitted or not. If action1...action3 are present but blank, an error is thrown: by contrast, if action4...action20 are present but blank this is the same as being omitted entirely. The inconsistency seems to have come in with where a pipe seems to have gone missing from three entries, but not the other 17. I've checked the logic, and despite the different spacing and position of line breaks, this is the only inconsistency between the two groups. -- Red rose64 (talk) 10:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, so it can't be fixed easily? I removed the unused parameters to suppress the error. — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks like User:WOSlinker has been coding a fix in the /sandbox. I'll ask him to attend to this request. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The change I made in the sandbox as suggested above didn't make any difference as far as I could see, so I didn't copy it over to live. I've copied those changes over now just to make all the params consistent but the issue still seems to be the same. -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I guess we could change the

{{#ifeq:{{{action1|}}}|{{{action1|u}}}
 * to just simply

{{#if:{{{action1|}}}
 * so that blank inputs are treated the same as no inputs? I'm not sure why Redrose says that action4...action20 behave differently because my test does not reflect that &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:08, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The template should not have blank action= "placeholder" fields. This template was designed to record events after they occur. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:01, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps not. But the template should not be displaying like this in case of blank inputs. I'll look at implementing my suggested solution above. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Using blank fields throws an error which puts the talk page in an error category. These sort of errors are uncommon and they get fixed when they happen. If you want to make it look better while in an error state, fine, but it seems unnecessary. Gimmetoo (talk) 11:43, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * As a result of this edit, the template no longer throws an error. That's not making it look better while in an error state, that's making it no longer an error. Undo, please. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * What "error" are you talking about exactly? The template will still detect if actionn is blank but any of the actionndate/actionnlink/actionnresult/actionnoldid are not. Apart from that I am not sure what error you could be referring to. In order to help me understand perhaps you could point me toward a specific example of an error which is not being detected properly. I suspect you have misunderstood the effect of the edit I made. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:19, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Gotta love it when people say "you must have misunderstood". As far as I recall, {{ArticleHistory|action1=}} threw an error before. Now it does not. To the best of my knowledge, your edit changed that behaviour. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

{{od}} When you say "threw an error" what do you actually mean? That the template misbehaves (as reported above) or that it populates the error category. I have just looked at the previous code again, and action1 would have done the former but not the latter. Now it does not do the former, and still does not do the latter. (Why should we treat that as an error anyway? It does not have any effect on the template and should not.) And, apologies if my response came across as condescending or in any other unpleasant way. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I recall, it did "throw an error", by which I mean populate the error category. (Above: "throws an error which puts the talk page in an error category".) That's what started this thread . Articles that appear in the error category get changed. This template was designed to discourage "placeholders", ie, blank fields.  Gimmetoo (talk) 13:13, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Disabling request for now as it's not obvious that we even know how this should be fixed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:04, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, too bad. Strange that we can't figure out what's causing the error. You might want to note in the documentation that blank parameters should be omitted to avoid the error. — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:51, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

{{fixed}}. Blank parameters are now treated the same as if they are omitted, so no error will be thrown up. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Great! Thanks. — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:46, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there a milestones limit?
The ArticleHistory template has nine milestones on Talk:Dungeons & Dragons, but only the first eight are showing. Is this because there is a cap on the number of milestones it can show? Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It should support up to 20, but I'll come and check. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Was a bug in the template code. Thanks for reporting it. Now fixed. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:41, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:09, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Portal namespace wording
There is a version in the sandbox that would change "article" to "portal", when used in the portal namespace. For an example of how it is now, see: Portal talk:Louisiana. Please update this template. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 19:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 22:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Possible typo in code
I'm not sure if this is an error or if it is intentional. I was browsing the source code for this template and noticed that the switch commands match  with , where every other pair has consistent numbering. For example: -->{{#switch: {{uc:{{#ifeq: {{uc:{{{action20|}}}}} | FAR | {{{action20result}}} | {{#ifeq: {{uc:{{{action18|}}}}} | FAR | {{{action19result}}} | {{#ifeq: {{uc:{{{action18|}}}}} | FAR | {{{action18result}}} | {{#ifeq: {{uc:{{{action17|}}}}} | FAR | {{{action17result}}} | I can't think of any practical reason why this would be intentional but I have not fully dissected the template yet. (Besides which, I couldn't make an edit myself even if I was sure). Can someone with more familiarity with the template have a look at this? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sure that's a mistake, well spotted. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 13 October 2012
Hi. We have had some confusion with the wording of passed good articles. Currently it says

"Article has been listed as one of the Category good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment."

This has lead an editor to beleive that they can instantly delist a Good article, whereas they should go through the reassessment process. Can we change the last sentence to say If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it."

Discussion is at WT:GAN. AIR corn (talk) 12:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

See Talk:Lucille Ball for an example of what the template currently looks like.

AIR corn (talk) 12:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Note, to make it easier to find the discussion please use section links. Anomie⚔ 14:22, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Hurricane John (1994)
The article history on this talk page is putting it into Category:Wikipedia featured article review candidates (closed) when it's not been to FARC. Can anyone spot what's causing this? BencherliteTalk 10:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * For some reason is was populating this category not only for FAR candidates but also FLR, FTR, GTR and FPOR candidates as well. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:30, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I tried but failed to see where the bug was. Now I shall check your contribs to see what you did! BencherliteTalk 12:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors
For the "copyedited" section of designation action WPR, can this please be changed or add an option for WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors instead of "League", as "League" is now a redirect to WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors?

Thank you for your time, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 05:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:50, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow, what a quick response, thank you so much! &mdash; Cirt (talk) 15:41, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Validation
We need some sort of process for validating the data. More specifically, it seems that anybody could set maindate to any date they liked, and there is no check that the article really was the WP:TFA on that date. This is in relation to this thread and this thread, where the general impression that I got was "it's not our problem - if you care about this, fix it yourself". How many other talk pages are showing a misleading note like "This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on ." and appear in when they should in fact show no such message, and instead appear in ? Note that if maindate is future, it's not (yet) a problem - my gripe is where maindate is past and inaccurate. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Speaking for myself, If I reschedule a TFA, I reset the maindate; I've done that already a couple of times since becoming a TFA delegate a few weeks ago. If I were to spot an error while going through WP:FANMP (which is a list of FAs awaiting main page exposure that works independently of this template), I would fix it, but I have yet to find an error. Otherwise, I think the "process" for validating the data is human-based, with all the strengths and weaknesses that implies - if a regular editor of a page spots a maindate being added for no apparent reason, or left uncorrected after a rescheduling, or clicks on the link to find a completely different article, then the parameter can be removed or altered. Meanwhile, I'll leave a suggestion at WP:Today's featured article/Delegates that others update maindate if they do end up rescheduling a TFA. Thanks, BencherliteTalk 17:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)


 * (ec) I understand your concern. This isn't really an Article history problem, though, but more specifically a population-control issue with the category (anyone could simply add an article directly to the category, or add one of the old mainpage date templates, or as you suggested edit the Article history, all with the same result). I can certainly sympathize: I've had the same concerns about the validity of the contents of the Featured article categories, and have audited them myself on several occasions over the years.


 * I will take a look at the TFA categories myself. I suppose it might be worth approaching a bot operator to propose a new periodic audit, but will withhold judgement on that until I see how they look. Maralia (talk) 18:13, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * for these replies. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:52, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No problem. A useful exercise: by using AWB to compare the contents of WP:FANMP and Category:Featured articles that have not appeared on the main page I found that four articles at WP:FA had not been marked as appearing when they had, one that had been marked when it hadn't (two films with similar names, and the wrong one had been marked) and one article history from 2010 (!) that said that an article had appeared when it had been scheduled and changed without the maindate being fixed. After the bot runs, just after 00:00 UTC, the only differences between the pages listed at WP:FANMP and in the category should be the 20 or so scheduled TFAs for the rest of December and 1st Jan. BencherliteTalk 22:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Heh, I just did nearly the same thing—you were fixing things at WP:FA, and I was cleaning up at WP:FANMP. How did you find the one mistakenly marked as having been mainpaged? Maralia (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * If WP:FA is fixed, the bot will fix FANMP when it next runs (because it creates the FANMP page from WP:FA), so I left it alone on purpose! The one that was wrongly marked as mainpaged was not in the "not TFA category" (because it was in the "has been TFA category" but it was on FANMP, so it stuck out like a sore thumb when using the list comparing function of AWB (which is a very useful tool). BencherliteTalk 23:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * One thing that I considered - and I don't use AWB so I don't know how feasible it would be - is to start at the talk page and follow the "Today's featured article" link to see if the first boldfaced bluelink on the blurb page pointed back to the article that we started from. For example, at of Talk:London Necropolis Company, the linked blurb is Today's featured article/November 24, 2012 which, ignoring the image, begins with "RAF Northolt is a ..." - not the same thing at all. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The version you link to of Talk:London Necropolis Company, when it was made on 22:19, 16 November 2012, linked to this version of TFA from 04:59, 16 November 2012, which happened to lead with "The London Necropolis Company...' - is that not the same thing? Gimmetoo (talk) 06:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was the same thing; but it was ; and the alteration without associated cleanup is what has caused this mess. In my first post on this page, I gave a link to this thread, in which I gave a link to the alteration concerned. Why the alteration was made, I don't know (and don't really care); what bothers me is that it left an invalid maindate which wasn't fixed for . A day after the alteration to the TFA blurb, the maindate on Talk:RAF Northolt - they could have blanked out that on Talk:London Necropolis Company at the same time, but might not have been aware of the change. Ideally, the person who altered the TFA blurb page would have amended the maindate on both talk pages as part of the reschedule process. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:38, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need to check it that way - I don't know how it could be done using AWB, but the only thing left for it to catch is where an article has been TFA but the wrong maindate is in the article history. I suspect the chances of this are rare; it would most likely happen with rescheduling article A and then Article A later becoming a TFA, which doesn't happen often, but as I understand it the bot would reset the maindate for Article A when it was scheduled the second time. Maralia and I have both found the same few problems where the article history wrongly showed a maindate and where WP:FA/FANMP didn't have the correct TFA markings, so I think we're OK now. BencherliteTalk 23:58, 12 December 2012 (UTC)