Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/November 4, 2008

ff m  00:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Query
What about United States presidential election, 2008?

--220.233.247.214 (talk) 06:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The article must be of featured status, which means that it meets a set of criteria and has been reviewed by the community. The article that you mentioned is not a featured article, but a similar proposal to what you suggested is taking place at the requests page.  – thedemonhog   talk  •  edits  06:36, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * If these are on the mainpage, they must remain unprotected all day.--82.8.171.236 (talk) 23:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Not these articles. The community has compromised on how all four bios of the candidates will be treated for today. The protection will stand. -MBK004 00:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Why is McCain on top of Obama? Nergaal (talk) 23:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * See alphabet--Scott MacDonald (talk) 23:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I originally suggested it this way because of seniority. Any choice of top/bottom would be arbitrary - so might as well stick to a traditional method.  BTW, FWIW I support Obama.


 * It looks like the page is locked now. I'd delete "was a community organizer" from Obama and add "and re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004" to McCain to make the size more equal.  Smallbones (talk) 23:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I protected it because it's going live in <5 minutes (7 when I protected it). Raul654 (talk) 23:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick switch, and thanks for keeping an open mind. Something different can be something good.  In case anybody is wondering - it took a lot of convincing at WP:TFAR for Raul to do this.  Smallbones (talk) 00:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I added JavaScript to randomize the order of the candidates as displayed on the main page. I figured it was the most fair thing to do. It was good enough for our candidate listings during the WMF Board elections, so why not the US Presidential elections as well? :-P  Cyde Weys  02:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Great thinking Cyde Weys ! That what I would call as a best demonstration of WP:NPOV


 * So, now the outcome of the election is in the hands of the Javascript random number generator... 128.232.1.193 (talk) 18:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Two featured articles?!
I know, don't get me wrong, we're always used to just one a day on the Main Page. Then again, it's easy to see why today's case is unique for WP. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 00:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * We've done it before. (same with TFP) ff m  00:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * We've never done 2 FAs before... Raul654 (talk) 00:23, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * When did the double WP:TFP happen?68.151.25.115 (talk) 15:33, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Copyedit
Some tweaks wouldn't hurt. Namely, what does everyone think of changing "During the Vietnam War, he nearly lost his life in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire" to "In the Vietnam War, he nearly died in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire"? It's simpler and more concise, IMO. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  00:46, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Another suggestion
Instead of "Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention", why not "Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention"? It's a direct link to his speech, and I don't see the point in linking to Keynote, really. Black Kite 00:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Awesome
Two featured articles...this is really nice. People can come to check Wikipedia to read about the candidates before they go to vote! Knowitall (talk) 00:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with the first sentence but not with the second. [[Image:Face-wink.svg|25px]] —Animum (talk) 01:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I already know who I’m voting for. No Wikipedia reading required! --Andrew Kelly (talk) 03:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Random order of the candidates
Really nice of you to put the candidates on the page in random order, Cyde!

Acps110 (talk) 02:36, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Nicely done! Good Job! :-) --PFHLai (talk) 02:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Great - works for me Smallbones (talk) 02:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Cyde - good solution. Tvoz / talk 03:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * This doesn't show up for me when I'm not logged in. In that case it has no effect, so no reason to remove it either, but the vast majority of the public will still see McCain up top.--chaser - t 03:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It does the same for me, but it's better than nothing by far. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  03:10, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I expect that it will display randomly for the majority of users: The major browsers won't cache the JS across restarts, many people restart their browsers (and whole computers!) every day. In addition, anyone who's first visit in a while is today, plus anyone who naturally cache timed out and anyone who does a full forced reload today. It's not everyone, true, but I think it's still far better than nothing. --Gmaxwell (talk) 14:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm an Obama supporter, but I was fine with McCain on top. This is an encyclopedia, so alphabetical order makes sense.  Chronological birth order and senate election order are other valid rationales.  —David Levy 03:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Even though McCain is higher up on the page, I think that the eye finds Obama's picture quicker (as that is closer to where the picture normally is). This reminds me of The Towering Inferno at Billing (filmmaking).  – thedemonhog   talk  •  edits  04:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I mentioned that at Talk:Main Page. But when Obama's blurb appears on top, his image remains on the left (which seems like an unfair advantage).  —David Levy 04:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, Obama is now on the top. The only reason that it somewhat bothers me is because the original random order was tossed aside for the sake of having a photo face the text. User:EVula said in his/her edit summary that he/she was making the change "per the MOS", however the MOS merely suggests that this tactic be used when appropriate. I think in this case, we have a compelling reason to do otherwise: the alphabetizing of the candidates' names and a randomizing with the use of Java. Okay, so I'm making an issue out of something relatively small, but I don't think we should completely disregard this recent discussion, ignore the consensus there, and completely throw the issue out. If you look at McCain's page, the image is facing away from the text and there is no problem. Best, Happyme22 (talk) 06:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I was fine with the original layout (top blurb and right-hand image for McCain, bottom blurn and left-hand image for Obama). It was a logical order, and the image placements made for a fairly balanced setup.  I wish that we could just go back to that.  —David Levy 06:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Can an extra line be inserted?
Can an extra line be inserted just above the text "Recently featured"? This should do it:

The visual break of a line would make it more intuitively clear that there are actually three sections ... one for each candidate, plus the one for the recently featured list. As it stands, having just the one line makes it initially appear that there are only two sections, and that the links to Delhi – Attack on Sydney Harbour – Metallica are related to whichever candidate is shuffled to the bottom half at the time. Of course, once you read what is says, it's more obvious that it's actually a third section of the block ... but having an extra line would make it clearer from the start. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 05:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. —David Levy 05:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That's much better imo. Thingg &#8853; &#8855;  06:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Obama making Wikipedia history
Is Barack Obama the first article to appear in today's featured article twice? Andjam (talk) 07:58, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. – thedemonhog   talk  •  edits  07:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Kudos
Just wanted to say bravo to everyone who worked on bringing these articles to FA level and to whoever thought up the idea of putting the two up together on the front page. This really shows Wikipedia at its best. Well done! --Zvika (talk) 15:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed! - Gobeirne (talk) 23:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Images
editprotected

Right now, both Obama and McCain's photos are located to the left of their respective entries. Could it be possible to move one of them to the right side of the box to create a more visually appealing image? NuclearWarfare  contact me My work 18:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Per the MoS, images of people should be looking into the text, rather than off the page. Cheers, –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  18:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Done by Raul. - auburn pilot   talk  20:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion
As far as these and these stats are reliable, the double TFA was actually a great idea. The Obama page drew an extra 500k and the McCain one 250k more than usual, or about six times the usual viewership. Still, the Nov 5 one for Obama is ridiculous. Nergaal (talk) 04:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * 2.3 million views; whoa! –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  04:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I wonder what's the record for a single article in one day. Nergaal (talk) 07:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Most of those hits were from web searches, not the main page. Google is still more popular than Wikipedia; it's just that Google led most people to Wikipedia. Gary King  ( talk ) 16:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The record appears to be Sarah Palin, August 29.--chaser - t 17:05, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Makes sense since most people didn't know her before that day, while most already knew Obama on November 5. Gary King  ( talk ) 17:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)