User talk:Karanacs/Dispatches/History

Notes from the archives for possible inclusion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/Archive_4 Will we ever run out of Wikipedia Featured Articles to feature on the main page? Theoretically, to keep up with the demands of FAOTD, there has to be more than 1 article per day on average that gets the Featured status every day. If, for example, we now have 1000 FA, we have featured 500 of them on the main page, and the rate of new FAs is 0.5 articles per day (1 FA status in 2 days), that means we will run out of FAs for FAOTD in 1000 days. --Orang gila 20:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

With luck, editors will see that as a call to action to edit more articles to the FA quality level. --JohnDBuell 20:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC) I hope so. The first FAOTD was Mozart on February 22, 2004. Between then and now (December 14, 2006) there have been 1025 days, and we have 1197 FAs. That means we still have 1197 - 1025 = 172 FAs that have not been featured on the main page. --Orang gila 22:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Well we also have to take into account how many FAOTD have been demoted from FAs, and how many FAs have been demoted from that status WITHOUT being featured on the main page. Plus there are some that any number of us would argue just don't belong on the main page. I would never nominate The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series) to be on the main page, because The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy already was. --JohnDBuell 16:53, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/Archive_4 Older FAs waiting for main page I think Raul does a fine job of scheduling TFAs. I was just wondering if there was a method to determine which FAs have been waiting longer in each category. I wonder if this list is used (Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page) and if so, I wonder if there is a way to somehow list the date it was promoted for ease of older FA selections. Just curious. Thanks. ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Right now, promotion date is a non-consideration. There is some effort to make it a consideration insofar as requests so. Raul654 (talk) 19:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC) Also, no, I do not use that list. I do it the proper way - which is, I have a second account that I log in with, which uses monobook (that I can't stand otherwise). In its monobook.css, it had the code necessary to bold all the articles in wikipedia:featured articles that have appeared on the main page. Raul654 (talk) 19:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC) Ah, I've wondered about the "automatic bolding" of the TFA when it doesn't look bolded -- lol. :) Anyway, thanks for your time, again, was just curious. Cheers. ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 19:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article#Two_featured_articles_at_once.3F List of forbidden FAs? "Raul654 maintains a very small, unofficial list of featured articles that he does not intend to have appear on the main page." That makes me curious. What articles are on that list? Can I find it somewhere? Cheers, Face 07:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Jenna Jameson is the only one I would be hesistant to feature on the main page. Wikipedia (now a former FA) was another one because it would be too self aggrandizing. Raul654 (talk) 03:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC) Why is Cannibal Holocaust, a cannibal splatter flick full of gratuitous sex (mostly in the form rape), clean enough to go on mainpage but not a mainstream pornstar? Peter Isotalo 07:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC) My goal is to feature as many FAs as possible while not creating shit-storms. I did not expect Cannibal Holocaust to cause one (and I was right); I do expect putting Jenna on the main page would cause one. Raul654 (talk) 14:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC) As a reviewer of the Jameson's article, and having watched (up to a certain moment of course) the professionalism of the editors of the article, I can't say that I share Raul's hesitations. Mainstream pornstars deserve their place in the project's front page! All articles treating their subject in a strictly encyclopedic and professional way deserve their place in Wikipedia's main page.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC) If we're to keep porn and the likes off the mainpage, it should still be done a bit more consistently. I get the feeling that Cannibal Holocaust got away without any major criticism merely because most people didn't know what the hell it was. Peter Isotalo 07:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive3#Proposal for FAC voting rules propose change (by USer:TreyHarris in June 2004 that objections must be actionable and specific - if it can't be fixed, isn't actionable; must not require changes to other articles, objections shouldn't violate WP policy, including MOS	Raul added that "objections based on "main page featurability" should be considered invalid, while I consider vanity objections (such as of promoting wiki or wikipedia) to be valid. "

/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive3 as early as 2004, people complaining that special inteerest topics should not be featured on the main page in June 2004 at least the FAC page had two sections: opposed vs Unopposed, and noms got moved in and out of them, then made it into one list

until the actionable clause added, articles were sometimes objected on grounds of being morally objectionable (partially driven by nomination of Fuck, which failed even after actionable clause instated)

-- Originally, nominators not expected to fix nominations, as they had not worked on those articles previously; sometimes reviewers would fix the objections, but this occasionally caused issues where no one was working on objections

as if Jul 2004 - arguing over whether a notice that the article is FA should go on article page (turned down)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive5 in August 2004, mav began objecting to articles because they did not have a references section. Shibboleth suggested this become a rule for FAs - at the time, most WP articles did not have references this was before we had a great system - in many cases it was acceptable to put an external link in the article to serve as thecitation adopted in september, but inline citations not required at the time decided that as requirements to FAs change, they did not become retroactive - articles not automatically demoted, but could be brought to FAR

Archive 6 beginning in Oct 2004, concerns that people who contributed significantly to an article before its nomination were !voting without disclosing - esp an issue because self-noms were originally not encouraged however, by this point most were self-noms, so it was decided that "that keeping all people who have worked on an article from voting on it would tend to bias the featured-article selection process away from the contributors best knowledgeable about a subject" - per RAul

in 2004 articles expected to be under 40K (mostly for technical reasons)

Dec 2004, began putting nominations on their own pages that are then transcluded into the main FAC page

By Feb 2005, the regulars on the WT:FAC page had noted that "a definite and marked increase in the standards for what a featured article should be" (RAul's quote) - older FAs had not degenerated, but did not meet the new standards

Mar 6, 2005, promoted 17 articles in one week - best week in FAC history

April 2005 - inline refs were proposed, but as wP as a whole hadn't settled on a type of citing method, decided to allow any style (inline citations, footnotes, or references section only

As of Apr 2005, 110 of the articles that were featured in Aug 2001 (oldest data available), 25 still featured *list is here (Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive9#Still_brilliant)

Featured lists spun off in May 2005 - suggestion of Filiocht - requirements for comprehensive, stable, and uncontroversial

comment May 31, 2005 by user:khaosworks - My take on it is this - if an article is noteworthy enough to exist, by all means, it should, potentially, be a featured article. That being said, however, as a representative of what Wikipedia can offer to everyone, it should at least try to be interesting to everyone. In other words, there should be stuff in there that goes beyond fan trivia and actually be able to tell non-fans why the subject is interesting, be useful to them in terms of introducing them to things they may not have known before, and maybe even get them interested. That is what a featured article should do, and in fact, that is what all featured articles, fan or not should do. It should tell the non-initiated something that will interest them. I'm not saying that the whole thing should consist of non-fan stuff, but there should be a reasonable amount, clearly delimited, to balance the rest out so that a non-fan won't just look on it as evidence of more kooky Trekkie obsessiveness. My main concern with Starfleet ranks and insignia is that a non-fan looking at it will not get any useful real-world information or understand why this is significant. --

first half of 2005, averaged 1 FA promotion per day

arguments over list vs Article as early as August 2005 (see archive 10 at WT:FAC) (then see archive 11)

Featured topics created on 12 Aug 2005 (item announcing it on WT:FAC was unsigned)

stability added in Jan 2005 as criteria, modified to specifically included edit wars added in Sep 2005 as a result of edit warring at Terri Schiavo, which was nominated at the time

by 1 Dec 2005, attitude had switched quite a bit and articles expected to be self-noms

new mediawiki citation style added late dec 2005

press release on 1000th featured article - June 8, 2006

unsure when, but by June 2006 FAC noms expected to have inline citations without inline citations - either footnotes or Harvard style

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive18 I've done a count of the failed nominations lists for each month back to May 05. The data are presented below; sorry, I can't do tables on WP.

The results show two trends: more nominations and a lower pass rate. I've compared six months last year (May to Oct 05) with the subsequent eight months (Nov 05 to Jun 06): nominations are up by about 24%, from an average of 86.2 to 106.5 a month; pass rates are slightly down from 43.8% to 38.2%.

The average number of nominations over the past three months (117.0 a month) is nearly 40% up on the same period in 05 (84.3 a month)—a much greater increase.

The pass rate peaked at an average of 44.7% in the four months from Jun 05 to Sep 05, compared with lows of 34.7% in Apr 06 and 35.6% last month; this suggests a mild downward trend.

Month/FACs/Passes/Fails/Pass rate %

Jun 06...121...43....78....35.6%

May 06...112...45....67....40.2%

Apr 06...118....41....77....34.7%

Mar 06...112...44....68....39.3%

Feb 06....88....35....53....39.8%

Jan 06....101...43....58....42.6%

Dec 05....95....36....59....37.9%

Nov 05...105...37....68....35.2%

Oct 05....72....34....38....47.2%

Sep05.....89....36....53....40.4%

Aug05....108...45...63....41.7%

Jul 05.....78.....37.....41...47.4%

Jun 05....86.....40.....46...46.5%

May 05...84....33......51....39.3%

Apr 05....83....31.....52....37.3%

Tony 09:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive19#Template for closed FAC

April 2005 - added to WIAFA that hey should be concise, tightly written (not too long) and should adequately synthesize summary article information

by MAy 2005, inline citations were being requrested more often at FAC (mostly by Mav)

no retroactive b/c too much work

repeatedly turned down proposals to force articles through GA or PR before nomination