Wikipedia:April Fools' Main Page/Featured Article

Please use this page for discussions surrounding the creation of a Featured Article for April Fool's Day 2025

Areas of work needed to complete the front page are:

Ground rules for this activity along with a list or participants may be found on the Main talk page.

Mission

In the past, various unusual articles have been improved to featured article status. These include exploding whale, heavy metal umlaut, Japanese toilet, spoo, Joshua A. Norton, George Washington (inventor), and Ima Hogg. People seeing some of these articles listed on the Main Page sometimes believe that it is a joke, when in fact, these articles are well-written and quite deserving of featured article status.

An unusual article (such as exploding toad or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch) will be edited up to Featured article status and listed on the Main Page on 1 April 2015. The "recently featured" sentence could be changed to "other featured", and link to the above-mentioned unusual featured articles.

Given the amount of time it takes to bring an article up to Featured article status, an alternative solution would be to use an article that has already been made a Featured article, but has not yet been listed on the Main Page.

Requirements

Bencherlite is willing to consider any article for April Fools' Day, as long as it meets three requirements:

It must be a featured article
It must not have already been used as the main page featured article.
It is not too risqué (more so than any other article that would be used on the front page) - 1st April is not an excuse to use naughty words in the TFA blurb

Action items

What are we going to write/promote? We need to pick either a new topic or an existing article to nominate for FA. I think we need half a dozen nominees - then we vote/get consensus on which one is most suitable.
We have to work hard to get it up to featured status. This may be very difficult and might take several attempts.
We have to usher it through all of the phases leading up to FA.
We need to make sure it's on the front page on April 1st. This means starting in on it in good time.

Proposals

If possible, let's try AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. 'Nuff Said... Eman235/talk 00:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How about the tale of King Louis of England, a King omitted from the King lists, his Admiral Eustace the Monk, and a nearly forgotten French invasion of England. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- He's not omitted from the King lists. Your definition of "nearly forgotten" must be different to mine - given that Shakespeare wrote an entire play about it through which schoolchildren have had to plod for four centuries, Louis' occupation of southern England is probably the most famous invasion of England other than the Conquest itself. It's also only a C-class article at present and that assessment is generous - the entire section on his reign (surely the most important part of the story of the King of France) is completely unsourced. 80.43.223.66 (talk) 09:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Perhaps I slept through it, but my school experience of Shakespeare was more Romeo and Juliet and one of the Henry's. I've yet to see King John, (my own childhood learning about him was mainly via the Robin Hood stories) and I'm glad to see we have Louis on our King Lists, but I'm sure he wasn't on the list I heard at school. There are various invasions of England that I do remember being covered, including successful ones by both sides in the wars of the roses and even by the Dutch, and less successful ones that got as far as Derby, another all the way from Africa. My experience is that a surprising number of people think that 1066 was the last invasion of England, so there is a rich line of strange but true stories there to be tapped. As for the current state of the articles, we have 6 months and if that isn't enough there's always 2016. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:02, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No. Bencherlite ^Talk 10:31, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I know! How about binary code? It's fairly large already. The blurb: 01000001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01110101 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101110 01110101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01111001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101101 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110100 01110111 01101111 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100111 01101001 01110100 01110011 00101100 00100000 00110000 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 00110001 00101110
- 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101100 01100101 01101101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01100011 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01000110 01000001 00100000 01100011 01101100 01100001 01110011 01110011 00101110 00100000 00101101 00100000 01000011 01110010 01101001 01110011 01100011 01101111 00100000 00110001 00110100 00111001 00110010 00100000 00101000 01110100 01100001 01101100 01101011 00101001 00100000 00110000 00110111 00111010 00110000 00110100 00101100 00100000 00110010 00110101 00100000 01010011 01100101 01110000 01110100 01100101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 00100000 00110010 00110000 00110001 00110100 00100000 00101000 01010101 01010100 01000011 00101001
  - 01010111 01100101 01101100 01101100 00101100 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00101110 Eman235/talk 07:31, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - 01010000 01100101 01110010 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010000 01100101 01110010 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00101110 01001001 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01001001 00100111 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00101110 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:26, 25 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jackalope is a good article nominee... Eman235/talk 22:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Frog cake is a good article, Drowning Girl, Fulvous Whistling Duck, London Necropolis Company, Upper Pine Bottom State Park, are all FAs that haven't been on the main page. Eman235/talk 00:20, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like every year I write a blurb for Pixies, which is a FA. --Dweller (talk) 13:28, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Here we are, 3 blurbs I suggested last year for articles that are already FAs:

Pixies were first created in a garage in 1986. They were often seen in bars and were known to be "either sweaty or laid back and cool", Pixies did not officially exist after 1993, due to arguments, although one Pixie did become a magician. Despite their death in 1997, Pixies revived in 2004, first re-emerging in Brixton, London. Having originated in America, Pixies are much more popular in Europe, although they have struck Pixie gold in the USA. The leader of the Pixies is called Black Francis and they are often heard singing about extraterrestrials, surrealism, incest, and biblical violence.
Both Fools and Horses were created in 1981. Predominantly found in south London, Fools and Horses are obsessed with schemes to get rich, mostly unsuccessful. Appropriately, the Fools and Horses are often found inside a horse's head, one has camel hair, several have Trotters and copies of their Robin are made by Corgi. [NB this article will need some work to get it ready)
The Kaiser was born in 1911, yet was involved in much of the naval warfare of World War One. Aged just five years, in the Battle of Jutland of 1916, the Kaiser was actually hit, but suffered no lasting damage. At the end of the war, in 1918, the Kaiser was interned and, as the result of a mistake, was sunk to the bottom of the sea by none other than a German Rear Admiral, Ludwig von Reuter. The Kaiser remained on the sea bed at Scapa Flow, off the coast of Scotland for around ten years, before being brought back to the surface, at which the body was broken into small parts.

Hope that helps. --Dweller (talk) 13:33, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- FYI, there's already a nomination for 1st April at WP:TFAR so I suggest any further nomination / discussion takes place there, as I doubt that the current TFA coordinators will look at this page before making their decision. You will also see a discussion about whether spoof blurbs are appropriate, about which people may have differing views. Incidentally, Dweller, you'll find links to last year's rejected blurbs at WP:TFANO. Bencherlite^Talk 13:42, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Bencherlite:, the necessary but bureaucratic* processes at TFAR make choosing an April 1 article and blurb more difficult and are detrimental to the need for free-flowing ideas and debate. It's not like choosing from two articles both of which may be suitable for a random date in October. *And that's from a bureaucrat! --Dweller (talk) 14:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - Not my problem any more! Last year a lot of, or most of, the discussion (particularly general discussion) took place on the TFAR talk page, if I recall. Anyway, TFAR has more watchers and activity than this page. Bencherlite ^Talk 14:09, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Blood Falls, ancient red water flowing where running water is not normally found. Possible for 2016? Ϣere SpielChequers 16:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Emu War would also be good, though I'm sure it's too late for this year. Modest Genius ^talk 12:34, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I'd love Emu War. If someone can get that to FA quality... (BTW, looks like this year discussion is mostly happening at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Invisible rail — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:41, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Nils Olav could have a brilliant blurb, but would need quite a bit of work to bring to FA standard. Modest Genius ^talk 09:48, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I love it. - Dank (push to talk) 12:40, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Moon is made of green cheese, a surprisingly real historical subject, I've developed it to some extent, and with some help I think we could get this to FA in time.--Pharos (talk) 19:24, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I just came across Mozart's Leck mich im Arsch, which is most amusing in a sophomoric way. It could make an entertaining April Fool's day FA. Praemonitus (talk) 17:16, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sabrina Sidney has just been promoted to FA, I've always thought it would make a great April Fools FA, the truth is stranger than fiction! Worm^TT(talk) 21:24, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ideas that are all already FAs

Today's Featured Article is Unknown --Dweller (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Today's Featured Article is Blue men of the Minch --Dweller (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Today's Featured Article is New York dolls --Dweller (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Today's Featured Article is Playboy --Dweller (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Today's Featured Article is a tale of wonder --Dweller (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is also Pig-faced women, but I have a dim memory Eric Corbett didn't want it to be on Main Page. Eric, is that right (and either way, got any creative ideas for a better option than this? --Dweller (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That was me, not Eric. I don't consider PFW appropriate for April Fools—and certainly not in the current climate with Gamergate pros and antis fighting in every conceivable venue—for the same reason I don't consider Hitler Diaries appropriate; while it's actually an article about a folkloric monster and no more sexist than Werewolf (all male) or Mermaid (all female), the subtlety is lost in a 1200-character blurb and readers will assume it's run with the intention of sexist baiting. See Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Pig-faced women for the arguments various people made against it last time. ‑ Iridescent 19:58, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see that. Any comments about the suggestions above, or any others on this page, a number of which are already FAs. --Dweller (talk) 20:25, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Iridescent: would it be a good idea to just pick another William Etty painting? sst✈^(conjugate) 05:35, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that for the past two years we have not used the "misleading, but true" format of previous AF TFAs. I can't see how any of the above suggestions would work as purely factual blurbs. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:23, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Is there any particular reason why we have to stick with that format? --Dweller (talk) 14:38, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - Consensus seems to have been for it these past few years, and there are several discussions in the TFAR talk page archive. But in the end, it also depends on the availability of someone to write a blurb. I don't know how Dank feels about writing one of the misleading blurbs, and nobody here has offered anything yet. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:44, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A few suggestions: Noisy miner (which would be misleading, but true), London Necropolis Company, Upper Pine Bottom State Park, Tourette syndrome, Pain fitzJohn (for his amusing name). Eman235/talk 19:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tourette syndrome isn't appropriate. – SchroCat (talk) 21:03, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I thought not. Eman235/talk 21:25, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer a funny FA, but I'm not sure if we have any available for April 1. Chris, I hope I can give you whatever you want. - Dank (push to talk) 00:08, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of these would be workable, but perhaps decried as juvenile (The Playboy vs. Playboy, for instance) — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:18, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unknown looks appropriately mysterious and probably just the right kind of juvenile.--Pharos (talk) 02:47, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Casliber suggested "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson", but presented as a court case. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 07:02, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still keen on this one: Pixies were first created in a garage in 1986. They were often seen in bars and were known to be "either sweaty or laid back and cool", Pixies did not officially exist after 1993, due to arguments, although one Pixie did become a magician. Despite their death in 1997, Pixies revived in 2004, first re-emerging in Brixton, London. Having originated in America, Pixies are much more popular in Europe, although they have struck Pixie gold in the USA. The leader of the Pixies is called Black Francis and they are often heard singing about extraterrestrials, surrealism, incest, and biblical violence.

Needs to be a bit longer. 1100-1200 characters. The current Pixie suggestion is about half the length we'd want. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 10:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to !vote on the Pixies nom, as I'm sure some kind soul would accuse me of being pointy, but this is an article in fairly poor shape, and not really what we'd want on the main page. Dead links, unsupported statements, prose issues, single sentence paras, etc. It shows that this was a 2006 promotion, despite the 2011 brush up it had. This really would be embarrassing to run. – SchroCat (talk) 17:24, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Preparing for 2017

I have posted at Talk:Main_Page#Today.27s_featured_article_.281_April.29. Please comment there. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:58, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

2021 discussion

See Talk:Main_Page#Heads_up and Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 1, 2021 —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:28, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Archived link for the first thing: Talk:Main_Page/Archive_202#Heads_up

And also: Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/Archive_14#"Recently_featured"_on_April_1 —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 20:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]