User talk:Dank/Archive 72

Blurbs
I owe you two, the black books and the skeleton; hold tough havnt been ignoring. Ceoil (talk) 17:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Not feeling ignored. I'm sure they will be worth the wait :) - Dank (push to talk) 17:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * My excuse is...an unfortunate series of events, dear boy. That said, having the black books on MP would be great. Ceoil  (talk) 18:45, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Not too unfortunate I hope. - Dank (push to talk) 18:59, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Disastrous and climate changing. Dont tell anyone. Ceoil  (talk) 19:42, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Nobody reads my talk page, your secret's safe. - Dank (push to talk) 20:26, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Cheers. If Jimbo gets word of it, my ass is toast. Ceoil  (talk) 21:49, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

TFA query
Dank, you seem to be well in contact with mainpage procedures and peeps, so you may be able to either answer this question, or tell me where to ask it. Tourette syndrome has been indefinitely semi-protected because of coprolalia-related vandalism since ... forever. We tried a Pending changes trial in 2010 that failed after only two days. I believe that articles at TFA are required to be unprotected (except for move protected); is that true? If so, what will we do and where do I ask the question-- at the talk page of TFA or at the mainpage talk? It is almost certain to require semi-protection throughout the day ... who/where do I ask what the process will be for TS? If you tell me I should ask at mainpage talk, I will wait until we are closer to the TFA date of March 3 ... but is there any precedent for leaving a TFA semi-protected? For example, Gropecunt lane ran July 9, 2009, was moved protected on TFA day, but has never been otherwise protected. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  14:52, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi Sandy. My understanding is that in cases like this the semi-protection would be retained, even on Main Page day. It's perfectly okay to ask in any of the usual forums (WP:RFPP, Talk:Main Page, or if you wait until March 1, WP:ERRORS) if you want to make sure that's what will happen. - Dank (push to talk) 15:00, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Are there any pros or cons to asking now versus waiting until closer to the date? For example, all of the sub-articles are likely to get hit. If I were to ask now, I think it would be at Talk:Mainpage ?? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  15:05, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure ... I think you'll get a sympathetic response there to a discussion there about semi-protection. - Dank (push to talk) 15:07, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sheesh, am I old ... I found this from 2010, meaning I am Way Outta Date ! Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  02:41, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

God of War (franchise) TFA
Any particular reason that cosplay picture was chosen to display there? Personally don't think it's that great of a picture to use. -- JDC808  ♫  02:13, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have a preference. Can you find a suitable free image? Some version of the God of War logo may be a possibility, if the version is unoriginal enough. - Dank (push to talk) 02:16, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

February flowers
A late Valentine for you: a bird that is normally only heard, acting on stage (well, it was the right balcony, to be precise, for most of the time, until she walked with Siegfried, carrying a little backpack) - the last reminiscence of the impossible made possible. - just pinged you. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:48, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Very pretty, thanks Gerda. - Dank (push to talk) 17:32, 19 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Today's Alte Liebe became especially meaningful after yesterday's funeral. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:15, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

FA enquiry
Hi, I'm planning a daily podcast which would rely heavily on Wikipedia FAs. Would it be possible to get advance knowledge of the FAs beyond one month? I ask because of the time needed to write the podcast, record, edit, and publish the audio. Since they'd be daily, I'd ideally want to do them in bulk. Having them in advance would be very useful. ThanksParacaido (talk) 01:12, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:TFAA is the link you're looking for, if you mean the Today's Featured Article (TFA) section on the Main Page. There's no specific scheduling information on future TFAs apart from WP:TFAA. TFA draws almost entirely from the Featured Articles (WP:FA) that haven't yet run at TFA. Blurbs have been written for all of these back through January 2016; links to these are in one of my sandboxes, User:Dank/Sandbox/5. - Dank (push to talk) 01:39, 26 February 2020 (UTC)


 * (watching:) it seems unlikely that you will be able to look fiurther ahead than the next month, to leave flexibility for FAs that just get written. The narrowest scheduling I observed was less than an hour (Kathleen Ferrier, complained about of course back then), but things improved to at least begin in the middle of on month for the following month. Why you would do such a thing I don't know, - you'll get all these monthly hurricanes, battleships, coins, birds, fiction magazines, - the small things about which a featured article is rather easy to write, - not the interesting topics which would require much more effort. Perhaps search for one vital article per day instead? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:25, 26 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks to both of you for your responses. Doing podcasts on vital articles would be interesting, however I can't think of a methodology for choosing each one. With FAs, I'd at least know they were chosen on a particular day - the randomness is part of the basis for the podcast. If the FAs for April are queued in the middle of March, that would leave a short two week window to produce the recordings. Do you reckon it's possible tp have them scheduled even more in advance, say on a six week basis. For example as it stands, the end of the FAs at the end of the month would be known six weeks in advance if they're scheduled in the middle of the previous month. But the ones at the start of the month are rather more time pressed due to being scheduled just two weeks before. Does any of this make sense?Paracaido (talk) 22:04, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * That won't generally happen, but I've been told that the April TFAs will be scheduled in the 1st or 2nd week of March. - Dank (push to talk) 22:09, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Too long in advance will be a disadvantage for FAs created rather "late". For looking further ahead, we have the "pending list", WP:TFARP, but not day-by-day, just ideas for specific dates a year ahead. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:30, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * No problem, thanks. I see April has been scheduled, and I think this a decent enough time to do what I'm thinking of. I'll keep you guys posted!Paracaido (talk) 03:02, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Paracaido, note that I only scheduled April that early because I'm on holiday for much of March, so don't rely on it Jimfbleak - talk to me?  12:10, 7 March 2020 (UTC)