Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Cyclone Rewa

Cyclone Rewa
This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Today's featured article/requests. 
 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page. 

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/January 7, 2014 by BencherliteTalk 09:18, 28 December 2013‎ (UTC)



Cyclone Rewa affected six countries and killed 22 people on its 28-day journey across the South Pacific Ocean in December 1993 and January 1994. Cyclone Rewa developed from a tropical disturbance on 28 December while situated south of Nauru. Crossing from the South Pacific basin into the Australian region, the system strengthened steadily as it paralleled the eastern Australian coast through 31 December. Rewa initially peaked in intensity as a Category 4 tropical cyclone on 2 January, then weakened and returned to the South Pacific basin. Weakening to a tropical depression after affecting New Caledonia, Rewa turned northwestward before re-entering the Australian basin on 10 January. Continuing on a meandering track, the cyclone reintensified to Category 5 severe tropical cyclone status by 17 January. The cyclone affected parts of the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Eastern Australia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and New Zealand. Following the storm, the name Rewa was retired.

Cyclone Rewa would be a good hurricane article to have on TFA at the end of December imo, as the 20th anniversary of the system is coming up between December 26 and January 23. As i see it the points are 1 for the promotion of the article over a year ago, 2 for the 20th + 1 for anniversary and 1 for the fact that this is my first TFA. However i have to knock off a couple of points as Tropical Storm Cindy (1993) has been scheduled for on December 12.Jason Rees (talk) 23:02, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Support December 28 sounds good. YE Pacific  Hurricane 20:20, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment – Blurb far too long. Happy to support after a wash and brush up.   Cassianto Talk   20:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think i will let someone who has experience in condensing TFA/Rs to do that.Jason Rees (talk) 22:37, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Support, high quality and educational, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:49, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Support for sometime in January, since there is a TFA scheduled three days from now. Ideally January 20 when it dissipates. It's a very good article for cyclones in the South Pacific, and since JR never has seen a TFA, I agree it should be posted fairly soon (more than other ones by authors who have seen multiple TFA's, myself included). --♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 03:59, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - blurb needs to be revised. It's too long for starters, but it is a confusing read...turning this way and that, entering this basin and re-entering that basin, northwestward, southward, eastwestward, curving, recurving (is that a valid word in meteorology? I know it is in biology and archery, but never heard it in weatherspeak), etc., etc. Yet another hurricane. --ColonelHenry (talk) 04:15, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * With Juliancolton's revision of the blurb (many thanks), I'll support.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:05, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I've reworked the blurb to what I believe is an acceptable length and presentation. I'll support on the same grounds that Hurricanehink described; the same three or four meteorology editors have literally had dozens of TFAs, so it's great to share the recognition a bit. It's a shame some people feel the need to diminish JR's hard work as "yet another hurricane". Nice job JR! –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 14:44, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Not to diminish their accomplishments, I'm just bored of reading about hurricanes and mushrooms like last year I didn't want to read another piece about Gibraltar. TFA just has hurricanes a little too often. --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:05, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's very fair, then. I think it's great that the main page is biased toward scientific topics instead of pop culture, but to each their own. Thanks for revisiting. –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 15:28, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I love the science topics, don't get me wrong--and appreciate them more than yet another article about Doctor Who or some celebutard. Someday (hopefully next year) I'll get Dent corn or a wine article up to TFA...but occasionally, I'd like to see a tree or a little more variety. Hurricane articles just seem too easily executed and often leave me thinking "o.k. now I wish I read something more substantial or original". For most of the hurricane coverage, if I've read one, I've read twenty.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:39, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * OK,, I'm going to make a few points in reply to your comments, because I don't think you fully understand the position and your facts are adrift. Let's start with the easy one: "Yet another article about Doctor Who"? Well, I count 1 in 2013 to mark the 50th anniversary, plus you might count Russell Davies (although he did rather more than just Doctor Who), so I don't know what planet you're on when complaining about too much Doctor Who at TFA, as it were... If you are bored with reading articles about hurricanes and mushrooms then the best solution is to write FAs in other categories, particularly ones that we're short of, to widen the pool for selection. You complain about mushrooms: well, we have many more unused mushroom FAs (38) than unused FAs about flowers (2), for example, which limits my options. You want more trees? 80% of the unused FAs about trees/shrubs are examples of the Banksia genus from Australia, so I suspect you would soon complain about a lack of variety there as well! If you don't have the time to help get an article to FA standards, and not everyone does, but you still want to contribute to variety on the main page, then the next best solution is to nominate interesting articles from other topics here at WP:TFAR.  Date-specific and non-date-specific slots are always avaialable.  Now let's get to hurricane articles.  Did you know that 63 of the 1,339 FAs yet to be TFA are weather-related, which is 4.7%? Put another way, if we ran TFAs in strict percentage proportions to the numbers outstanding in each category, we would have about 17 weather TFAs per year, or between 4 and 5 every three months, or 1 every three weeks.  In 2013, I have scheduled 11 to mid-December, so we've not even had an average of 1 per month.  So writers of meterological articles if anything might feel a bit hard done by, compared to (say) writers of articles on art/architecture, history/politics, and literature, which get much more than 'their' percentage share at TFA, for one reason or another.  Now, strict percentage rations isn't the way that TFA works, although it's something I bear in mind. I can only work with what FAC has produced over the years.  In terms of striving for variety, even within the weather-related articles, I do my best to vary the regions/countries affected too, although you probably didn't appreciate that. See User:Bencherlite/TFA notepad for the stats.  Which reminds me - I haven't scheduled a video game TFA for a while - time to rectify that. Sorry for the rant, but I couldn't let your remarks go unchallenged. BencherliteTalk 18:31, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Hey, Bencherlite, we have no quarrel...I actually like your system better than others used in the past. I think you overread my comments. Since some of my comments were general observation and not (unlike the case of hurricanes) a specific criticism of TFA. As far as insinuating I haven't taken the time to get an article up to FA standards...I've done 4 FACs this year (3 promoted...one running tomorrow) and one successful FLC (Alcohol laws of New Jersey]] (booze and law), Duino Elegies (poetry), List of colonial governors of New Jersey (colonial history/politics), and Samuel Merrill Woodbridge (a theologian and clergyman), and I have two current older FAs (geographical and music) that I have on my radar to fix up for TFA/R sometime early next year, and a few articles in the pipeline up for FAC for next year (a school, a political office, a building, a poem, a cereal crop, a wine region, and a university)--none of which are hurricanes or mushrooms. So I do my part for the sake of TFA diversity...and I'm not the only one with an issue about hurricanes and mushrooms. Aim before you snipe, please.--ColonelHenry (talk) 18:44, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You, too, could "aim before you snipe", ColonelHenry. Bencherlite's task is not easy to begin with, and is made even harder by people sniping about selection.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:58, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * My apologies, ColonelHenry, for not being more precise in my use of language, which led you to think that I was sniping at you when I was not. My reference to "if you don't have the time to help get an article to FA standards" should have read "if someone doesn't have the time [etc]", although I was in fact replying to your point that you had a couple of articles you would like to get to FA but didn't know if you would be able to do so next year. I know you have written FAs - after all, I've scheduled them!  But I don't know why you think that comments about lack of time would be a criticism anyway - it certainly isn't - I have a few FAs under my belt, as it happens, and I know what it can take, and real life takes priority.  This is a volunteer website after all - and, personally, I have no time to write even a B-class article at present!  As for you making merely general observations and not specific criticisms of TFA, I must confess that I read your post as a complaint about too many hurricanes, too many mushrooms, too much Doctor Who, not enough trees and not enough variety at TFA. Perhaps the words "Yet another hurricane", "I'm just bored of reading about hurricanes and mushrooms", "yet another article about Doctor Who", and "but occasionally, I'd like to see a tree or a little more variety" gave me the wrong idea. BencherliteTalk 19:09, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Lets not turn this nomination in too a game of who can snipe the loudest, but instead focus on how to improve the article or the blurb. Personally i can sympathise with people who feel that there is too much meteorology/hurricanes on the Main Page. However it is well deserved at times since TC's do cause a lot of death and damage, with this years total deaths from all basins very likely to end up over 7000 if not 10,000 if all of the people currently listed as missing are declared dead.Jason Rees (talk) 19:27, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Copyedited, sans snipe. LeadSongDog come howl!  23:31, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes you copyedited it, but you reduced it to 987 characters including spaces, 18% short of the target of 1,200, so I now have to rewrite it to get it back up to an appropriate length. BencherliteTalk 21:01, 19 December 2013 (UTC)