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GOCE input

I'm really, really, trying to hold my tongue here for once in my life, but if this conceited prick arsery veiled as help from GOCE becomes standard, given the moves in the last few days, then I give up[1]. Its all micro formatting preferances, that even Kevin would be ashamed to offer, not to mention its all after the fact. I see from above that the major opposition to GOCE input so far is insensitivity to content, and an obsession with dashes and similar bullshit invisible to readers. Is this the road we want to head down? Note the posting was over 14kb and multi bulleted. I'm not going to engage with such an aggression, and to other FA nominators...similar is headed your way. Ceoil (talk) 01:23, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Ceoil I have just finished reading through the entire page and am trying to organize a long response; real life hasn't cooperated. But here is the problem: this discussion is on the wrong page. What we have here is NOT a TFA problem; it's a broad process problem. I would rather start a new thread at WT:FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:52, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Dear friends, I will work on this list. Some of it is useful, not all, but all of it is of the nature of nitpicking that once would have been done by many editors on mainpage day. Raul understood that engaging the community at TFA is a good way to recruit reviewers; if the GOCE people have the time to nitpick at this level, it would be wonderful if they participated in FAC or FAR, rather than going after one of our better FAs. Attempting to present "perfect" articles for TFA is coming at too high of a price, and our resources are not being wisely employed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:04, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Overall FA process discussion

See the FAC talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

We need to talk about Kevin

I'm finding that some TFA error reports don't stand up to scrutiny, and, in putting people off, are undermining the overall effort to bring the main page up to standard. To take [2] as a recent, single example.

• More than two weeks ago - an oft made claim....in this instance I did not have awareness of his "concerns", though of course I worked with Dan in the lead up
• He does not seems to base attacks on reading, and is casting aspersions on claims backed up by several sources.[3]
• He only attacks, never corrects, helps, or admits his own errors. Similarly, to make a character assessment, will follow nominators to their talk pages [4]
• More fundamentally, he seems to be advocating extreme literalism, rather than what blurbs should be....teasers (think what DYK know was conceived as, and how newspaper headlines work).This is how I learned to approach leads, not to mind blurbs... Yannismarou: The lead is a summary of the article. In the lead I will tell you that "El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school." But I won't tell you yet why. I will also tell you that "El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century", but I won't go into details.
• Dank is taking the brunt of this, but is, unfortunately, a finite resource, and I'm guessing close to breaking point. Re succession planning; do we see Kevin winning through attrition and taking over the reigns?
• I wonder if others have had similar experiences or thoughts. Ceoil (talk) 00:02, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
  • First things first: let's ping Kevin. - Dank (push to talk) 01:10, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• and Jimfbleak, Ealdgyth and Wehwalt as moderators. Some leadership would be appreciated here, if we re to accept crowns. I'm assuming that none of this is news. Ceoil (talk) 01:46, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I would say that we've spent more time on this issue than any except the minutiae of scheduling since I became a coordinator 2+ years ago. We, and Dank obviously has taken the lead on this, have tried to make adjustments such as the early writing of ledes, soon after promotion. That's a tremendous amount of work, a lot of it on "spec" because not every one of those articles will run in the near-term future, by Dank and Johnboddie (who helps him on blurbs). We are limited in what we can do, we can't go in all heavy-handed. Even if heavy-handedness were justified, we don't have the remit or power to be heavy-handed. This is to some extent a matter for the TFA community to solve, and we'll do our best to show leadership. If not I suppose things will continue until we reach a breaking point.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:03, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Fine, but with respect, we are at breaking point already. How would the workload be shared if Dank quit. TFA ownership is just not *just* abut choosing, its about ownership from start to finish, and if ye feel that weak articles are coming through, that ye don't feel ye can vocally defend, to Kevin; say so to the coords, or set up rules for original nominators that they sign off on blurbs (there was a time when noms used to fight over having main page). Otherwise ye are cu.ating lambs to the slaughter, and sort about pointless. I must say, maybe ye should change tack; from here it feels as if too much is resting on Dank, who much as I admire and respect him, does not have the temperament for day to day aggro and battle with silly people. Ceoil (talk) 06:44, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with you but I'm trying not to foreshadow what Dank will say.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:33, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Wehwalt. I am interested in casting thing out wide, as there are behavioral and approach issue worth talking about. To be frank, I think Kevin is a net negative, consistently wrong, unable to interact with normal people, a time vacuum, and deserves a block or topic ban. Ceoil (talk) 11:24, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• Agree with the nominator. It's less than a year since Iridescent (doubtless watches this page but courtesy ping in any case) noted myriad differences between legitimate criticisms fro e.g. WP:ERRORS2 and those which appear purely self-indulgent. Quote: where I have an issue is with the outright trolls like Kevin who make up non-existent issues just to give themselves something to complain about is about as succinct a summary as comes. The situation is exacerbated by a small number of enablers @ERRORS.
  For the record, though, if any kind of sanction is sought, it will probably have to be done at AN/ANI rather than the talk page of an already obscure project page. ——SN54129 13:10, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

AN/I suppose it has to be. Although I am exposing myself, having called out Kevin as either spectrum or a particularly belligerent, incoherent, troll; fine if this is what it takes for the process to keep on turning. Will compose an argument and book a holiday. Ceoil (talk) 14:55, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Might suggest leaving this open a bit longer and getting more views before entering the Swamp. Ducks in a row, that kind of thing. Incidentally, this is my opinion in general terms. ——SN54129 15:03, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

There also seems to be a failure of management issue worth teasing out. It pains me to have to point out such obviousness to eg the likes of Ealdgyth, who is supposed to be watching how articles ex FAC, a highly fuctioning process, are curated and managed in led up to main page. My impression is zz(Dan will sort it out)zzz, in which case....???. Ceoil (talk) 13:26, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I've been watching, yes. In general, I felt that Kevin's behavior was starting to verge into becoming troublesome, but TFA coords aren't chosen to be policemen, we're chosen to select articles for the main page. Same for FAC coords - we can be policemen, but only on the FAC pages - not the main page. CHanging either of those roles into a policeman for the main page errors would require a new consensus from the community - which would require ANI/AN. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:15, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

So just selectors. Then dont be so officious and prickly, if thats all ye do. God be with the days when Sandy showed principal in fac realms. Ceoil (talk) 15:36, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

If the leads of articles from which Dank and others are meant to be the best of what Wikipedia has to offer, then Wikipedia is in a sorry state. I feel sorry for those trying to make silk purse MP content out of such pigs ears. And if attempts to help make something into good quality MP resource are going to be met with such apathy, defence of the status quo because it is the status quo, passing of the buck and then fuck it, let it be as shit as many of you are obviously content with it being. There are some people working really hard to try to make MP worthwhile, but there are some real wankers hanging around here, and I am not going to give them any more satisfaction. Sod 'em. Kevin McE (talk) 15:07, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Fuck off Kevin, frankly. Arguing with the likes of you is about the last thing I want to do, because its so easy....and soul destroying. Just disappointed your voice got so much traction - you should have been given the door years ago; eg when was the last time you expressed an opinion on an article at FAC; you are a horse is bolted, football player on the ditch merchant; and then with such weak, and bizarre, arguments. Still though, nice to know how yous see us at last..."real wankers". Anyways, all you are is symptomatic; if Ealdgyth is saying...we wernt doing anything all along...it was smoke and mirrors....what was the reason behind the appointment in the first place...bling? Ceoil (talk) 15:38, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• Some historical background and institutional knowledge to those who are reading this and wondering what's happening (like me!). Back in the day, for however many years, Raul selected and wrote a blurb for each TFA every single day. If I remember correctly he also notified article stakeholders, i.e FAC nominators, of the imminent TFA. For whatever reason we got rid of him.
  Then for two years Bencherlite selected and wrote a blurb for every single TFA every single day. He notified stakeholders, nominators on their talk pages, and when an article passed FAC he invited the stakeholders to TFAR, which was fairly active at that time.
  When he left we went to the multiple selector system. I don't remember whether that was when we also chose a single person to write a blurb, every single day. As the system is now, 3 or so people select on rotating months, but we still have a single person writing blurbs every single day. That's suboptimal in lots of ways that need discussion.
  Furthermore, and this is complaint that I've noted only on the articles that I've been involved with that have been TFA recently, there seems to be a variety of notification methods: editor talk pages, article talk pages, pings, etc. Personally, because my activity level is very low and my watchlist is set to two days only, if something is important, such as an upcoming TFA, I don't see it unless it lands directly on my talk page and I get a yellow notification. So, I think there are some issues that can be hashed out: how best to spread out the burden evenly (and I'm sympathetic, particularly because I've been forced to the sidelines and can't volunteer to help); how best to notify and to keep the notifications consistent (my vote is for editor talk pages); how to repopulate TFAR to reduce the selection/blurb writing burden.
  As for the discussion at hand, from the bits I've seen, it's really best for people to show up at FAC and lodge comments there, which is the purpose of FAC, rather than wait until the last moment and expect people to scramble.
  Some editors write FACs to be showcased on the main page, some of us take main page day as a necessary but unpleasant part of bringing an article through to featured status - which really should mean that it's reached a stable and best-that-we-can-do condition with unpaid volunteers doing the heavy lifting. Nothing is perfect, but expecting people to jump at a moment's notice is unhelpful. Victoria (tk) 17:32, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Just a clarification, Victoriaearle: there were no notifications (to editors) when Raul was writing every TFA every day. That is because there was no expectation that FAs be perfect before they go on the mainpage. FAs were a means of recruiting reviewers to FAC and FAR, which were vibrant places then. I fear we are going the wrong direction in having GOCE and the like comb through articles pre-TFA, and losing the opportunity to grow FAC and FAR participation (something that is sorely needed). As the overall process has moved towards the idea that TFA is supposed to be the place where we improve articles, or make sure they are "ready", we have lost FAR entirely in the overall process, much to the detriment of FAC, FAR and TFA. Gaining GOCE is not the best end of that deal.

I see that most editors are highly appreciative of the TFA notifications, and glad to be involved in writing the blurbs, but it may help to discuss whether having to go through mainpage day for a full month is optimal. And whether we are shooting ourselves in the foot by focusing on cleaning up articles for mainpage day, rather than letting the process work the way it was designed to work. What I see here is that some aspects of TFA are contributing to the decline of FAR (the idea that TFA is supposed to prepare articles, make sure they are "ready"), which is greatly needed. And as both processes (FAR and FAR) decline, esteemed FA writers like you and Ceoil are getting the blowback. It's a process problem, not a TFA problem (although it may now become a TFA problem with GOCE in the picture). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:30, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

• Many FA writers regard the front page appearance as an unpleasant burden, and do all they can to avoid it. It usually involves a day of dealing with vandals and Wikipedia:Randy in Boise, who likes to copyedit. Occasionally Randy asks questions on the talk page because he can't be bothered reading the article. I personally pay little attention to article leads, and they are usually too long to use as blurbs anyway, but this comes back to bite you, as the blurb has to be a summary of the lead section. It is quite challenging to write; you have to boil the lead down to between 925 to 1,025 characters. Preparing the blurbs in advance has been an interesting innovation in the last year. Experience has shown that the version the TFA coordinator would write and the one I would write are pretty similar. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:22, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

  ↑Same as this. It's bad enough much of the time have Randy try to "improve" by making erroneous changes, but when the lead up to the front page is grief and disruption over personal preferences so the way something that should be done, rather than things that are actually erroneous, then the grief level becomes too high. But I guess I must be one of the "real wankers" who doesn't care about quality... 🤦‍♂️

  Recent example: Project Rover. Not one valid change in 24 hours. Four editors reverting vandalism until finally an admin semi-protected the page, which should have had TPP to begin with. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Mostly I don't like playing stupid games when there is no need and many better things to do with my time. - SchroCat (talk) 21:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I dont think at all that the blurb should be summary of the the lead, which of course is summary of the article. That route is absurd and reductive, and precisely what Kevin is clinging to. His argument basically boils down to...."why isn't the summary of the summary self sufficient and cited to the eyeballs." To that i say teaser, though I know ifs on deaf ears, as he thinks we are all quote, "wankers". Ceoil (talk) 22:00, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with you; I would much prefer more flexibility in blurb preparation, so I could, for example, use a part of the article. But those are the rules. There was also something about not piping links on the main page (WP:NAVNOREDIRECT) but the coordinators have not added it to the rules, so we do not follow it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:53, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• Trying to keep this reasonably brief:

• Kevin's assumption that he alone is concerned about article quality, and that those who work on bringing articles to FA standard are not, is clearly wrong, as well as insulting;
• Although he sometimes raises useful points, his inability to accept any viewpoints other than his own, makes dealing with him very challenging;
• His approach to leads is prescriptive and overly literal, and indicates a unwillingness to accept that other approaches can be equally valid;
• His mode of interaction with other editors - aggressive and didactic, followed by personal attacks when he does not get his way - appears to me to be the very opposite of collegiate.
• All in all, I'd agree that his contribution is a net negative - by quite some margin. KJP1 (talk) 19:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Without having read anything above in the last few days, as there is some regret;

• My postings were born of frustration, especially after the "Cut the Crap" errors reports which I thought were frankly ridiculous, but par for the course
• However I miss aimed wrt blame, esp towards Ealdgyth who mind you are volunteers; I should have though more carefully through; per [5]; will get my coat
• I still enjoy the lead up to TFA, interacting with Dan on copyediting etc, maybe not so much the main day recently, but maybe should have had tougher skin and kept my mouth shut. Sincere apologies for offence caused to those unfairly caught in crossfire. I agree it was always more of an AN/I matter...maybe as a community we should have faced up to it sooner, and not placed too many expectations on coordinators. Ceoil (talk) 22:59, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I enjoy the interaction as well. - Dank (push to talk) 23:18, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• Yeah, but in the immortal dead pan words of Vinnie Jones: Its been emotional. At the moment the icing on the cake, after an exhaustive review process, and work with especially talented copy editors is, a kick in the head. Obv I would have no credibility on an/i given my block log, but to echo Voctoria above, these issues should faced head on; I don't share Iridescence's optimism that the issue has abated, it seems to me a lull; the man just revealed himself by called us all "wankers". Ceoil (talk) 10:26, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Beaune Altarpiece as example?

I haven't been following the above issue closely, nor do I have time to dig into it to see every single incident, but my sense is that something has opened the door to fiddling with scheduled TFAs.

Here's an example: Beaune Altarpiece is scheduled to run on Dec. 28th, during Christmas week. One of the issues there is it that it's a bloody huge piece of art so the image placement is tricky. Beyond that, there's a huge amount of scholarly material, none of it easily parsed, and as a co-nom I've not revisited the sources since we worked on the article in 2014. Since that time, I've moved on to a new computer, all my files are somewhere on a external disc, and I've not been able to be very active here because of some real-life health challenges. Nonetheless Ceoil & are discussing the article on my talk, there's still time to bring it up to snuff and there shouldn't be any pressure.

Yet, this morning I was greeted with a message that the article has been submitted to GOCE. If there are substantial issues, they should have been raised at FAC, they can be raised on the talk page for the editors with access to the sources to consider, and those editors can always be found on their respective talk page.

Moreover, I've not even had time to look at the blurb but it's being edited by editors who don't have access to the sources as far as I'm aware.

In my view the process should be a., article goes through FAC and relevant issues are raised there; b., article is scheduled for TFA and blurb is written by a single person; c., article goes on the main page and it's a free-for-all. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I admit I've been out of touch. It seems now that the process is a., article goes through FAC; b., article is scheduled for TFA and the blurb becomes open to whomever wants to edit; editors swarm the article to "check" its TFA readiness and the free-for-all can last for the weeks up to and including TFA day.

I'd intended to run through the article, and get into the sources if necessary. But thinking about it, it seems if the issues are so egregious that GOCE has to be called in, then the article should go to FAR.

Furthermore, at this point there are too many cooks in the kitchen so to speak. The article has been stable for years, and I'd expected minimal polishing. Instead any mistakes made by editors unfamiliar with sources will have to be rectified, the blurb has to be watched, etc., etc. Personally I don't want to deal with fixing mistakes made, weeks of tinkering, weeks of fighting, which is unfortunate because I have a lot of subject knowledge about that particular 15th century piece of art.

My sense is that the either the TFA coords, or the community, need to have a discussion in terms of workflow to make things easier, not more difficult for the editors who research, write, and bring to FA-standard any article, let alone one as difficult to write and research as this one.

This is a very long-winded way of saying that I wash my hands of the situation. Have at it. But I'm not happy about this. Victoria (tk) 17:03, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

@Victoriaearle: It came about through this discussion, unfortunately. ——SN54129 17:27, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but the article has had fewer than 100 edits in five years, and many of those in the past few days since it's been scheduled. In other words, it's been stable. Common sense has to prevail. I'm not in a place where I can review old discussions, and lord knows there are articles I put through FAC a decade ago that would need lots of work to go through TFA again, but this aint one of them. Plus, who has access to sources is an important consideration, imo. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned or something. Regardless, I'm not playing. It's too stressful and too hard when not feeling well during this busy month. Victoria (tk) 17:36, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this up. I agree that there's a "too many cooks in the kitchen" angle that could be non-optimal, or even disruptive, and I agree that the GA/FA community needs to keep an eye on this (and I'm not thinking of just the Guild ... there are significantly more cooks on average than we had, say, a year ago). I need roughly a month-long wikibreak to deal with some real-life stuff (I've never had one of those, I feel like I'm missing out) ... I'm planning to take almost all of January off. But if people want to talk about this, please go ahead. I'll join the discussion when I get back. - Dank (push to talk) 18:29, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

This may be apropos of nothing, but to register that I think the recent drive to get blurbs for all FAs nomed in 2018 is very helpful, and allows thought to be put in without an uncoming FTA, when time might be short, or editors are otherwise preoccupied. Another thing that needs to be said, in my experience suggested blurbs by the current team often lead to improvements to the article lead. For my own part, all the recent activity is helping me learn the difference between a blurb and a lead; though I still think more latitude should be given to blurbs, which are supposed to draw people in, and thus should be pacier. Ceoil (talk) 20:20, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Kind of you to say that, and many thanks to everyone who's been helping. - Dank (push to talk) 20:35, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

What is the process?

@TFA coordinators can you all please delineate the process as it currently stands? Issues that are murky to me are these:

• 1. how is the notification of TFA made to the FAC nominators? In this case it was made on the article talk page during a time when I was out of town for a funeral and I missed it until much later. Had it been on my talk, I would have received a yellow banner and seen it sooner.
  • I don't know the answer to this one; I don't do scheduling, usually, except in emergencies. - Dank (push to talk)
• 2. who writes the blurb? According to this Dank recused. I don't know why, so is blurb writing now done by the person doing the scheduling? Or the main editors? Or whomever wants to edit it, without access to sources?
  • I recused on that article (and a bunch of others) because I was becoming aware that I was going to need a wikibreak soon, and I thought issues might arise. - Dank (push to talk)
• 3. are articles selected for TFA now open to rewriting or punting to GOCE?
  • That initiative has been spearheaded by Gog the Mild, and several GOCE people have participated enthusiastically. I don't have any issue with the competence of the people involved. I think there are potential issues with finding a workflow that works for everyone ... that probably needs to be an ongoing discussion. - Dank (push to talk)
• 4. are the main editor/s now out the loop in terms of checking pre-TFA, or do they have input as has been traditional for as long as I remember?
  • AFAIK, GA and FA writers don't generally feel shut out of the process ... but it's a good idea to keep asking the question, because as soon as anyone does feel shut out, we (as a community) need to know about it and do something about it. - Dank (push to talk) 18:49, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks in advance for clarification. Victoria (tk) 18:32, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Not a coordinator, but regarding #1 each time one of my FAs was up for TFA I was told so on my user talk page. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:39, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

FOr #1 - I notify on nominators talk pages. For #2 - For November, the last month I scheduled, the blurbs mostly were written right after the FAC nom closed as promoted, with input from the nominator and others. As for #3 - we don't control GOCE or other editors recommending things for GOCE. (my own thoughts on GOCE are pretty much "stay away" because I don't think having someone copyedit without consulting the sources is good practice, but GOCE seems to think it can be done without issue). Since I make a habit of notifying nominators of TFA, I can't say I consider #4 at all something that comes up - I try hard to make sure the nominators get notice. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:50, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I think in this case, unfortunately, both Ceoil and Victoriaearle slipped through the cracks; neither appear to have been notified re. this appearance. ——SN54129 18:54, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I concur with Ealdgyth, it's standard to notify on the nominator's talk page, and I guess that if that didn't occur it was human error. FWIW, if there are multiple noms for a FA, I notify them all. For January at least, my next month, blurbs for TFA article that pre-date the FAC-linked system are likely to be mainly written by me with help from the other TFA coords where appropriate Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:30, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I've been notifying on article talk with pings to the nominators, so that everyone is informed. I've received a number of thank-yous and think it is a useful way of doing it. I will make a point of notifying Victoriaearle on her talk in future. So far as the blurb for the 28th is concerned, I wrote a draft and it appears to have been edited since. This is usual when Dank recuses. It is not, as a practical matter, possible to confer with the FAC nominators in advance of scheduling. At least in the months I schedule (including December), I tend to be more reactive, schedule first and adjust when someone objects.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:56, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks all. I've struck the issue of notification, because it's not at all the main issue, and it's really annoying to feel that one needs special attention. It was simply there because the system seems inconsistent and consistency is helpful in life in general.

The biggest issue, as far as I'm concerned is that once the article is chosen if the "use by" date is x number of years, it seems to automatically be punted to GOCE, but not by the TFA coords. This makes preparing the article for TFA more difficult and isn't a practice that makes any sense at all. An article might go to GOCE before FAC, but not pre-TFA. If an article needs GOCE, then it needs to go to FAR, in my opinion. Do any of you think this is an article that needs to go to FAR? Because I honestly absolutely do not have time, energy, nor am I in good enough health, to clean up anything beyond the usual mess Ceoil and I may have made.

In other words, this process isn't making sense to me and I reiterate that there are too many cooks in the kitchen, which then causes all the ERRORS reports. What, if anything, can be done? If nothing, I'll get into the sources and do what is required of FA writers, shut up, go away, and not complain again. Victoria (tk) 20:13, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I would like to see it that it's the TFA coordinators' jobs not only to choose the article but to set the final form of the blurb, but WP:ERRORS doesn't seem a fan. I'm a bit surprised that you are surprised on how I notified you, this stems from our discussion back in September, and I did it back then for the article that you were concerned about. Possibly you had forgotten. In any event, given the repetitive nature of FA scheduling, I wonder if there is some way to use a bot for some portion of it.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Wehwalt, this is completely irrelevant and off-topic. On the day you made the notification I was at the funeral of a family member who died unexpectedly. I. was. not. here. to. check. I made a mistake. It slipped by me. So. Anyway, I'll let it go now and I apologize for mentioning it.

My surprise is finding that GOCE has been called in to "fix" the article when Ceoil & I have been discussing it on my page. Again. So. I will now let this go. Someone please put an archive box around it. Done with this "discussion". Victoria (tk) 20:45, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Can I request a hold off on archiving? Nominators not being notified in time or GOCE being called in on articles pre-TFA are potentially problems - the first because articles may have nonobvious problems, ditto the latter plus the FAR point Victoria raised; I've certainly seen and heard of copyedits creating source-text disagreements for example. JoJo Eumerus mobile (talk) 21:04, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

All nominators have been notified of their articles running, at least 10 days in advance as is my practice. In December, somewhat as an experiment and also because I have been concerned about fairness to those who aren't FAC nominators of an article being notified, I made notification on the article talk page and pinged the FAC nominators to the notification. Regarding the GOCE, I agree that having them copyedit a pending TFA is not ideal but who can tell them not to?--Wehwalt (talk) 22:25, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

• I've not seen a GOCE re-write that is anywhere near FA or professional standard, but that might just be my bad luck. I personally wouldn't trust them to copy edit their way out of a wet paper bag. And that's before you take into account that they don't have the sources to check what they are doing. - SchroCat (talk) 22:38, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Given the pushback here, I think some discussion is needed. I left a comment at WT:Today's featured article/January 2020. - Dank (push to talk) 03:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• My take-away about this conversation is that a question about consistency in notifications is interpreted as a request for preferential treatment; blurbs seem to be written haphazardly as/when someone gets to it, and Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/December 2019 & Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/January 2020, complete w/ prefix of TFA seems not to be recognized by the coords. As I speak the article's refs are being changed according to someone else's preferences, and the editor/s who took the article through FAC are now ... don't know. Out of the loop I suppose. I have to wash my hands of this situation and unwatch here & that article, but it's a shame because it's an article I put a lot of effort into and would have gone through to make sure it looked good for TFA. For reasons that don't need to be belabored there's a limited amount I can do on Wikipedia and these conversations (or rather non-conversations) have taken up my a full month's quota of what I can volunteer and that's before I get to article space. My advice, if anyone cares, is that something needs to be fixed in TFA; either advertise these changes, or get buy-in, or something. In the meantime, seeing what's happening to that article has brought me to tears, but I'm just a stupid woman so hey, par for the course. Victoria (tk) 01:11, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
  • One side comment, Victoria, if you mean spelling out the full name of states in locations within citations, I've recently learned myself that the MOS requires them to be spelled out (see MOS:POSTABBR): "They should not be used in infoboxes, nor in citations (except in an article using a published citation style that requires it)." Perhaps a well-meaning editor is just trying to help comply with the MOS? Imzadi 1979 → 03:33, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I read MOS:POSTABBR as requiring it, since it contains an exception for an established citation style, to the extent that the provision is valid, since it seems to have been added without discussion in February by SMcCandlish.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:49, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Just so

Just for the benefit of anyone unaware, it is plausible that the title of this section is a literary reference. MPS1992 (talk) 21:44, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

It's totally implausible...that it is not  :) ——SN54129 17:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Pre-TFA copy editing

Re Victoria's point four. This grew from Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/Archive 11#Is there a copy-editing process for older articles?. Among other noteworthy comments is Dank's, addressed to Espresso Addict, that "EA: I've never seen any evidence that people want TFA coords to play some special role in copyediting articles, or overseeing copyediting. If someone decided to set up such a process, I wouldn't be involved. Thanks for your copyediting, it's much appreciated." I decided that I could make a useful contribution, having some basic grasp of the FAC process, copy editing FAs, and assessing FACs. Like all of us, I am a volunteer, with many other things I could do with my time – even on Wikipedia, time spent on this comes straight out of my content creation time – and my reason for committing the time is purely because I care about the quality of article we put on the main page and because there seemed a minor gap in quality control which I could make some fiddling contribution to.

I would like to stress that the initiative has nothing to do with the TFA coordinators, the Errors team nor GOCE; any errors of omission or commission should be laid at my door. Purely as a courtesy I have tended to comment on progress on each month's talk page. Recently this has grown surprisingly formal, eg see December and January.

I think that it may be useful if rather than focus on, to me, slightly nebulous, I've never seen GOCE do anything useful, or "GOCE has been called in to "fix" the article" we looked at edits actually made. As a part of this process; I have not made any edits to Beaune Altarpiece, and so far as I am aware, neither has anyone from GOCE. To give a feel for the level of editing I am talking about, this is the diff for the article from 1 December, and this for the 2nd. I endeavour to be considerate of nominators feelings in the process; I have found "my" seven TFA appearances so far this year between unsettling and traumatic (and have mixed feelings about the 17th and the 1 January) and have no wish to add to this for other editors. I would hope that having another experienced pair of eyes on an article may provide some comfort or even reassurance. For articles I have copy edited this month, the 14th's got a jocular response, the 27th's got encouragement (and a thanks after it was done), and the 18th's led to a brief and, I think, fruitful discussion.

Importantly, to me, there have been no complaints, or even minor grumbles, regarding any edit made as part of this process over the past 9+ months – with the notable exception of Littlemore Priory scandals which I would class more as a spirited exchange of views: it is possible that its FAC nominator may disagree with that. (Wouldn't be the first time.)

My view in May, expressed to Ealdgyth, was "I simply wanted to make sure that I hadn't invented a pointless job for myself, or was repeating an activity which had already been done to a "good enough" standard. As there seems to be a feeling that I'm not I'll carry on until someone suggests otherwise." That hasn't changed. The answer may have. Dank commented above "I think some discussion is needed"; I believe that he is correct. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:55, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I really appreciate your professionalism, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 19:14, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Gog, some of the problem folks have with the GOCE is the concern of many of us that keeping text properly supported by the sources doesn't seem to be a concern with some. The training page Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/How to doesn't mention anything about source integrity and worrying about keeping text supported by the sourcse and when someone questioned if checking sources was a part of GOCE remit, this was a reply here. For FA writers, this is a big big concern... and thus we get a little spooked when someone without access to the sources and without a track record in respecting source integrity starts playing around with prose. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:22, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Ealdgyth: I am aware of the concern and can fully relate to it. I have had 15 FACs pass in the past year, and I wouldn't want anyone messing around with my sourcing. IIRC the only editors apart from me to carry out "pre-TFA copy edits" are Twofingered Typist and Reidgreg, both editors whom I have in the past requested have a pre-FAC copy edit of my FACs-to-be. Both, IMO, are fully aware of how different types of copy edit are appropriate for different situations. (As in: I recently butchered the new article Fortification of Frankfurt and was thanked for it on the talk page (and got a barnstar) while St. Croix macaw's pre-FAC copy edit needed a much lighter touch and I discussed anything which I thought might need a look at the sourcing on the talk page.) I understand general "what if" wariness, but a fair few articles have been through this process so far and I think that there have been no cases of actual edits being thought objectionable. (A lot of editors routinely submit "their" articles to GOCE Requests immediately prior to FAC nominating; others prefer not to, but not, I believe, because there have been any actual complaints in the two years that I have been picking up requests there. But as this is not a GOCE initiative, I am probably getting off the point.)

I suspect that the nub is who the actual editors who do the work are. If so, the two other than myself have impeccable track records. (It is not of course for me to judge my own record.) No one who is relying on referencing back to GOCE's training pages is going to get anywhere near this process. (I assume that the page in question, like many training exercises, grossly simplifies in order to give a trainee a place to start.) In short, only copy editors with a strong "track record in respecting source integrity" are going to be participating – at least in so far as I get any say in it. (If only because "my" TFAs go through the same process.)

I am not sure how directly I have addressed your concern here, but hopefully I haven't strayed too far from your point. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I wasn't going to grumble (even in a minor way!) but as this is being discussed now: Brothers Poem is up for TFA next Friday, and as a result has had the GOCE treatment here. And... eh. I don't see that it was all that helpful. In a series of 12 consecutive edits, I count:

• exactly two unambiguous grammatical fix (insertion of "being" in "until being rediscovered" in the lead; "appear"→"appears" in the first sentence of §Context)
• added a bunch of wikilinks
• several stylistic changes which simplify the syntax
• at least five changes in word order for no apparent reason
• several changes of one word for what looks to me like another no more appropriate word with no explanation (e.g. "relieve the family from their troubles"→"relieve the family of their troubles"; "only around 650 survive"→"roughly 650 survive")
  • @Caeciliusinhorto-public: FWIW, I would have kept "around" but there's a subtle tone issue with "only" here. It implies that the writer expected more to have survived. That's editorializing, and is unencyclopedic. It's also unnecessary in context, and we should generally trim unnecessary words. (Elsewhere in the article, "only" is used in the sense of singular/exclusive which is fine.) – Reidgreg (talk) 23:44, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
• thirty billion replacements of spaced en-dashes with unspaced em-dashes – which serves only to clutter up diffs to make it harder to see what substantive has changed
• the same of double spacing following a period being turned into single spacing.
• two places where unambiguous grammatical mistakes were introduced
• one place where a word replacement introduced a less appropriate word
• one place where a word replacement changed the meaning: "address a man"→"describe a man"

Of these ten types of change (ordered roughly from most helpful to most unhelpful), at best the first three benefit the reader; four make no difference to the reader but make it harder for me to read the diffs, and three make things unambiguously worse for the reader. Now I have gone back and fixed those changes, the article is improved, but the difference between the GOCE-edited article and the pre-GOCE article is at best net-neutral, and IME probably net negative.

I think that making sure articles going up on the Main Page are in top shape is an important cause, and I am theoretically in favour of the GOCE – but in my experience, GOCE editors are most effectively used on badly written articles, where there is a lot of clear improvement to be had. FAs are (in theory) gone over with a fine-tooth comb at FACtime, so even if an editor's "errors introduced" rate is very low, they're still statistically likely to introduce more errors than they catch. And this is increased if they make a bunch of fundamentally quite pointless edits. If you ever find yourself thinking "should I change it therefore is likely to therefore it is likely?", consider: 1. how much of an improvement will your change actually be? 2. what are the chances that there is a subtle difference in meaning which I am missing here making my edit a net negative? Even if the chances of the latter are minimal, the infinitesimal improvement you are making still makes the edit's expected value negative. And if you are making hundreds of these itty bitty changes, the very small negative value of your edits multiplies. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:13, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Caeciliusinhorto-public: It seems to me that that is the sort of feedback we need to make an evaluation. To partially address part of your comments, in September Laser brain, one of the, then, two FAC coordinators expressed disquiet over the high level of non-MOS compliant articles being promoted out of FAC - see here. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:22, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I just checked this, Gog the Mild. Laser brain did not say that a "high level of non-MOS compliant articles [are] being promoted out of FAC"; he said that non-MOS compliant articles are being presented at FAC, and he pointed out that kind of work is expected to be done before articles appear at FAC.

What reviewers could do to make the coordinator task easier and to help FAC function optimally is to quickly check every new nomination for the basic basics (MOS, reliable sources, not too sucky prose), and quickly Suggest withdrawal before the two-month, back-and-forth lengthy FAC commentary takes over, resulting in sub-par articles being excruciatingly drug up to standard. (It is quite horrible to tell a nominator after several months that their article was not ready for FAC to begin with, as I just had to do: the quicker you get the "Oppose" or "Suggest withdrawal, unprepared" up there, the quicker that nominator can start repair. Opposes are often the fastest route to promotion.)

I see in Laser's post a coordinator coming to FAC talk to remind nominators to bring articles that are FAC ready and MOS compliant, which is also a way of asking reviewers to please start doing the most helpful chores, early on, of checking that FACs are not premature, so those that are not yet FAC-ready can be quickly dealt with, and resources saved for more worthy articles. (I was surprised that Laser would say 90% of articles were non-compliant with MOS, because it is easy for a coordinator to call for that to be fixed before promotion.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:38, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I really dislike disagreeing with you SandyGeorgia, but you wrote "Laser brain did not say that a "high level of non-MOS compliant articles [are] being promoted out of FAC; he said that non-MOS compliant articles are being presented at FAC,". Their actual words were "I just wanted to note that when I go through to assess articles for promotion, I'd say around 90% of the time the article is not MoS compliant." I find that difficult to read "when I go through to assess articles for promotion" as anything other than, um, well, "when I go through to assess articles for promotion"; which is, of course, something which happens after an article has been signed off by its reviewers, at the end of the process. Obviously, if FACs are MoS non-compliant at this stage, they must have been MoS non-compliant when nominated, but that was not, it seems to me, Laser brain's point.

Obviously, we would all prefer FACs to be MoS compliant when nominated, or, failing that, for any non-compliances to be resolved during FAC. But it seems to me that Laser brain is very clear that in the case of 90% of FACs which are signed off by reviewers for promotion this is not the case. Gog the Mild (talk) 06:44, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

We would have to ask Laser brain exactly what he meant, but your interpretation says that he is promoting non-compliant articles, which I highly doubt. (Well, at least, with respect to MOS; non-commpliant prose is routine now, and most FAs are promoted with deficient prose, but that's a different topic.) As a former FAC delegate, I can assure you that I "assessed articles for promotion" every time I read FAC almost every day, and that wording had nothing to do with whether I actually promoted the article. I don't know Laser's method, but if the MOS issues were simple and the article was otherwise promotion ready, I fixed the few MOS issues myself and noted them on the FAC before promoting. If the MOS issues were significant, I indicated on the FAC that a MOS review was needed before promotion. Since Laser said he didn't mind fixing the issues himself sometimes, but indicated that nominators should be doing this, I highly doubt that Laser is promoting non-MOS-compliant articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:00, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Among some people, the MOS has acquired a reputation of being a too long compilation of someone's pet preferences that have nothing to do with article quality and invite pedant wars. Perhaps that's the reason why MOS compliance is suffering?

Plus a while ago FAC had a problem with people fussing too much about style and too little about source-text integrity and reliable sourcing. That might also induce a change towards deemphasizing MOS. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:07, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

MOS has always had that reputation, and in the past, MOS was interpreted in that vein at FAC; the logical and useful and widely recognized portions were followed. MOS compliance is suffering because there is no one reviewing MOS: all the reviewers who did that are gone. And in my limited observation, on very few FACs do the coords call out the lacking reviews. When did FAC have a problem with source-text integrity and reliable sourcing, and why do you think that has been corrected now? That problem is considerably larger, post-Ealdgyth source reviews, than it has ever been. But still, the worst problem at FAC today is the prose. Numerous WBFAN lines are full of writers who have not a single decent FA. To say that MOS compliance is "suffering", in view of the current prose, isn't what I'm seeing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:15, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I have been following and plan to weigh in with some ideas for discussion as soon as real life permits. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:12, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Sandy: Awaited eagerly. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Gog the Mild I'm just putting a fairly quick comment here for now and need to be gone for a while. I mentioned being cranky on the Beaune talk page, and generally, no, I don't think it's ok to feel pressure. Which is what this has caused but I'm sure Ceoil will be much more sanguine.

To return to what I was trying to say above and it's directed more at @TFA coordinators coords & the FA/TFA community than you, is that the process as I remember it consisted of 1., selecting an article; 2., writing a blurb; 3; notifying the primary editor; (plus there's paperwork, that I'm leaving out of the workflow but I'm well aware is time-consuming). Now we seem to have 1; selection; 2; blurb ??; 3; notification; 4; GOCE. The GOCE process adds a ton of work and honestly if it's now part of the official workflow of FAC/TFA then that should be communicated clearly somewhere and might even need an RfC.

Personally I think part of TFA is to allow editors to "touch" a main page article, and generally I ignore TFA edits and then deal with issues later. Most of the TFA day edits are fine, if someone wants to add templates and some such I have no issue. Again, personally, I do have issues when copyedits change meaning are done for the sake of copyedits. If the prose is substandard one of two things is wrong: either the article shouldn't have passed FAC or it's degraded too much to satisfy the FAC criteria. In either case, the article should be sent to FAR.

Anyway, I have more to say, but will leave it at this for now. Apologies to everyone for being cranky (particularly Wehwalt), but I believe some of these points need to be resolved - it's especially important that those of us who are thrust onto the main page understand the work flow - so please try to overlook my less than elegant presentation. Victoria (tk) 21:26, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I have not taken offense at anything said. I regret if anything I have done or said has offended you.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:32, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

I am (until the end of the year) the lead coordinator at GOCE. I worked on a lot of the November TFAs, and will accept my share of criticisms regarding such interventions. I will remind folks that the FAC process is not infallible and things have slipped through. I've seen recent FAs with typos, double negatives, and overly complicated sentence structure. These are not world-ending issues, but neither would I call these examples of "the best writing on Wikipedia". Spelling errors shouldn't pass a B-class review, but nobody wants to call an FAR over a typo. Wikipedia has an "if you see a problem, fix it" tradition, and I don't feel it's worth going through laborious consultation for minor fixes. The copy editing I've done on TFAs is usually limited to a couple awkward sentences and some MOS cleanup. There have also been some outliers which I felt needed more substantial copy editing, and those definitely benefit from consultation.

I'm not sure what to say moving forward. GOCE doesn't have any special authority or privileges, and I don't have any control over who joins GOCE or how they choose to edit. I can understand a certain amount of caution. What GOCE brings to the table is an infrastructure for processing copy edits and editors who specialize in that (the three GOCE editors working on TFAs completed over 900 copy edits last year). It seemed like a good match. I agree that it'd be preferable to do major copy edits for FAC rather than TFA. – Reidgreg (talk) 23:44, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Reidgreg; I think it depends on the article and the nominator. In some articles where the language is nuanced or technical, (Beaune is an example as its about much argued over iconography) generalist copy editors may be less suited; however in a lot of other cases they would be highly appreciated. This obv goes for older articles that have depreciated over the years. A difference between editing on a TFA and an FAC is that FAC gives a natural forum for back and forth for discussing the edits; this doesn't seems to be happening with TFA edits, though it seems the blurb pages are becoming this. Anyways, as somebody somebody that struggles with prose; yes it would be great for GOCE was partially orientated towards FAC, or per above FAR. The more help the better :) Ceoil (talk) 20:34, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Reidgreg, Victoriaearle has gotten it right. If FACs have issues, those are dealt with at FAR, or by encouraging editors to become more involved at FAC, not by having people climb through the article for a month before its TFA, or wait until there is an ERRORS report. Somehow, FAR has been forgotten and left behind in the entire FA process; this is not a TFA problem (although a small part of the way TFA is functioning is exacerbating the problem). It is pretty clear that GOCE, while well suited for general copyediting, may not be the best solution for the issues affecting FACs. It might also help to realize that one of the ways we incentivized and motivated people to become FAC and FAR reviewers was by NOT trying to make articles perfect before they went on the mainpage. I will probably start a new thread at FAC to discuss those inter-related FA process issues. This page is not highly watched, and is not the optimal place to resolve broader FA process issues. This is an issue of how FAC, FAR, and TFA could be/should be working together; GOCE involvement at the TFA stage is unlikely to be an optimal solution to what ails the process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:01, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Although the promotion rate has fallen below one per day and they are now re-running some, most articles still wait over a year before being run, and some wait a decade or more. While some subjects are static over long periods of time, others require continual updating. So some review is required, but FAR is not the place for cleanup. Nowadays, once an article goes to FAR it will be stricken regardless. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:34, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Mainpage day is where cleanup happens. And a good way to find good reviewers to bring to FAC and FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:32, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Commenting (belatedly) as I was asked to comment here—my view of GOCE hasn't substantially changed since this discussion two years ago. There are some circumstances, such as newly-created articles by relatively new editors and articles translated by non-native speakers, where their approach has potential value, but once we get on to longer articles and articles written by experienced editors who are already familiar both with what the MOS says and more importantly why it isn't always appropriate to follow it, their approach tends to be overwhelmingly disruptive. I would absolutely and without any exception oppose giving them any kind of formal—or even recommended—role in any of Wikipedia's review processes. If their members want to participate in FAC/FAR they're more than welcome to, but as individuals to be treated as we would any other reviewer; if there's even the slightest indication of them working together to try to impose their own strict-compliance approach to the MOS we should treat them as we would any other meatpuppetry tag-team and deal by means of blocks and topic bans.

As SandyGeorgia says, we don't want perfection, let alone some GOCE member's personal idea of perfection, we want material that doesn't contain errors and inconsistencies. TFA should be to showcase articles that are among Wikipedia's best, not articles that are in a transcendent state of grace and can't possibly be improved further. (This is why, annoying as the driveby cranks are, I'll always oppose full-protection of the TFA; exposing an article to 20,000 readers is the ultimate review process, and it's not uncommon for them to spot a genuine issue that's not been noticed in the reviews.)

On the OP's topic of Kevin, my views on him should be well known enough by now; if we're going to continue to allow his trolling and disruption at WP:ERRORS (it's ridiculous IMO that The Rambling Man, who often made reasonable points, is banned from the page while Kevin continues to be allowed to treat it as his personal blog), then TFA along with the DYK, ITN, OTD, TFP etc people should formally rule that no objection raised by Kevin should be treated as either actionable or worthy of reply unless and until another editor concurs that the concern in this case is actually legitimate. He's wasted far too much time of far too many people, all of whom have better things to do. ‑ Iridescent 18:06, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I was wondering if I should talk about the role of the coords here, When I typed "user:" in the search bar just now, the username that came up was "Piano non troppo": Italian for "softly (or quietly) ... but not too much". I'll take that as a sign that I should say something ... because that's what I see as the coord role, and I think my colleagues agree. Our job is generally to stay quiet or speak softly, but to be willing to speak up when we have to. For many months, Gog's initiative didn't produce any pushback that I'm aware of. Then there was a minor conflict, and I talked with some GOCE people about it. Then this happened. Recently I suggested on my talk page that I'd like to see signs of improvement by the end of January if that copyediting initiative is going to continue to work out of TFA-space. I'm not pessimistic; everyone involved in that project is easy to work with. And besides, it's not that hard to figure out how to do less of something, if doing less is what's needed. I pinged the other TFA coords and no one has objected yet, but if anyone has a different suggestion for how to proceed, I'm all ears. - Dank (push to talk) 20:06, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Heh—ironic that you raise that name, who was one of the most obnoxious Randy-from-Boise's ever to grace FAC. Looking at that Beaune Alterpiece talkpage you link I find It's in MOS, so feel free to return your improvement. We've got your back, which sums up better than I ever could just why I stand by my opinion that whatever their good intentions, GOCE are at root a pack of MOS-obsessed automatons. ‑ Iridescent 20:23, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

FYI - there's this. Piano non troppo was blocked as a sock of 56tyvfg88yju, who was a sock of ItsLassieTime. Anyway haven't had the chance to log in for a few days, this is at the top of my watchlist, and I see that there's still discussion re Beaune at Dank's page. I think if anyone has anything to say to me as to how that was handled, re "battleground", then please bring it to my page. It might have been a one off, maybe "high brow" humanities articles are a different species, dunno, but it's not been a fun experience. Basically agree with everything Iridescent says but he says it much better than I ever could. Victoria (tk) 20:49, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Good to know (about ItsLassieTime), thanks. The thought hadn't crossed my mind to complain about what editors are saying re Beaune. I'm concerned about whether that copyediting initiative is being sufficiently responsive to feedback, and whether they're hearing the clear message that a variety of people have asked them to dial it down a bit, and whether things are going to go better in January than they did this month. We can't tell anyone what to do, but we can raise the question of what should or shouldn't be happening in TFA-space. But again, I'm not pessimistic; we're dealing with good people here, we just need to make sure the message gets through. - Dank (push to talk) 21:15, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Iridescent, replying a little belatedly myself.

"if there's even the slightest indication of them working together to try to impose their own strict-compliance approach to the MOS we should treat them as we would any other meatpuppetry tag-team and deal by means of blocks and topic bans." Speaking only for myself, I think that I am broadly in agreement with this. If I seem a little hesitant it is because a) I suspect that there is history behind your comment which I am unaware of and b) the proposed response reminds me of the old English law that the theft of property worth more than 13 pence was a capital offense. Unsurprisingly, juries were (very) reluctant to convict, and prosecutors valued ridiculously expensive things at 12 pence to counter this. However, it would seem, to me, obvious that it is not for any group of editors, much less a WikiProject, to attempt to unilaterally impose any non-policy measures, least of all on FAs or TFAs. To may be pleased to hear that the GOCE coordinators have expressed a disinclination, I translate freely here, to touch the pre-TFA copy edit initiative with a barge pole.

"we don't want perfection ... we want material that doesn't contain errors and inconsistencies. TFA should be to showcase articles that are among Wikipedia's best, not articles that are in a transcendent state of grace and can't possibly be improved further" This would, to me, approach being an axiom. So long as we realise that there is plenty of scope for honest disagreement as to just where on the exponential curve of diminishing returns "doesn't contain errors and inconsistencies" lies.

Cheers. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:43, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikibreak

Oops, just realized I haven't mentioned it here yet. I'm working on a project involving automatic text generation for species articles, and I'm having trouble focusing on it, so I'm going to take a wikibreak (my first in, well, ever) to see if that helps. It starts later today and will hopefully run through the 21st, but I'll be back sooner if the project goes faster or slower than planned. Let me know on my user talk page if there's something urgent I need to do. Behave while I'm gone. Peace. - Dank (push to talk) 16:07, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Beha... , beh... , be... . No; you're going to have to explain that one. Enjoy. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:37, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Putting non-featured articles on the main page as a way of getting more editors? (Tidy Up Tuesday?)

Long time editor here. I had an idea about FAC/main page/how to get more people to edit. Once a week (say, Tidy Up Tuesday), put an article on the main page that either failed an FAC, or otherwise has some minor issues. We could direct the readers to the failed FAC, or a section on the talk page. I was envisioning something like: From today's not-quite featured article, and have link to comments, or the failed FAC, etc.

I've had a few of my articles appear on the main page. Usually, one of the FA coordinators will notify me of the date, and ask me to check that the article is up to standards. I was just thinking on that. This is Wikipedia, after all. Perhaps we should occasionally prod our readers that not every article is perfect, and that they can help too (even on already good articles, but not quite perfect). We might just get a few new users. Don't get me wrong, I value the main page process of identifying the best articles on Wikipedia. I just think allowing some other articles might diversify the articles chosen. I've had quite a few of my featured hurricane articles on the main page, some of which were rather minor. I doubt the average reader would care much to click on them. However, if it was a much more important topic that the reader knew could contribute to, it might inspire some more editors. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:27, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

An interesting idea. One concern is that we might be exposing FAC nominators, who are already trying to bring an article to FA standard, to a ton of unhelpful edits. TFA is not for the FAC weary! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

I like this idea. Yes, a lot of what happens when an article is linked from the main page is noise/vandalism but in my experience sometimes things like typos or unclear bits get flagged at that time. The biggest question would be how to select the candidate article for this process. Some people might not like any TFA-like attention to their articles and others might chase it as a prize. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:43, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

If it is decided to do it, perhaps there could be a request for nominations? Gog the Mild (talk) 20:42, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Iff there was the same requirement as at FAC that a nominator must be an active contributor to an article, and iff no article not so nominated is run, there could be a place for this, but I'd suggest someone notify Talk:Main Page as folks there are likely to be interested in this discussion. We might specifically want to talk to the DYK folks - they've started running newly promoted GAs in that section so may have some useful insight on whether that improves those articles or not. Presumably many new GAs should fit into the "otherwise has some minor issues" category? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:07, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, many new GAs and even more so non-GA DYKs have minor issues (and sometimes major issues). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:04, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't DYK already perform this role? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:39, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, running in DYK tends to improve articles, in my experience. The entire reason I submit articles for DYK is to get more eyes on them in hopes of improving them, both during the review process and during the time on the main page. --valereee (talk) 03:01, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is proposing that this replace TFA, so shouldn't the discussion of this be at Talk:Main Page or similar? I see Hurricanehink did leave a note at Talk:Main Page.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:41, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I read it as if Hink was saying it would go in the TFA slot-- otherwise, in what space would it go? Isn't mainpage real estate an issue? I may have misunderstand the proposal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:45, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, WP:TFL happens twice a week but it doesn't pre-empt us.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:55, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

This could take the same slot as TFL but on Tuesdays. It should be simple enough to add another #switch module to the Main Page. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 23:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Sounds similar to Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement, except maybe with a higher barrier to entry. I think it is a good idea, even without having a minimum standard. As long as libelous material is not in a BLP, put it up. The worse the article is the more likely someone will improve it. My first edit was because the wrong winner was shown in a sports championship finish, and look where I have spiraled to now! If I had not found such an obvious thing to improve I would have never started. Would be hard to setup maybe, because any fact on the main page would not be editable by the masses, so perhaps simply listing the article with a couple of resources on how to improve articles (maybe even links to relevant WikiProjects) could be best. Kees08 (Talk) 16:12, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not in love with this idea. It seems to me that a massive influx of edits might do more harm than good, at least for articles that are close to FA standards. I'm also not sure that such a feature would actually inspire new editors as much as we might think. There's a handy chart here that breaks down the editing at articles chosen by TAFI, and many of the more recent ones haven't seen that much activity considering they're running for a full week (without appearing on the Main Page, granted). Most of the articles from the last few years have had just 5–10 people working on them. IIRC, TAFI had a Main Page spot at one point, but it didn't last long. Giants2008 (Talk) 19:38, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Alternate idea

Per the long discussion over at WT:FAC, I'll extract and repeat something I said there, for an alternate proposal here:

My concern about the new TFA trend of scheduling only "perfect" TFAs months in advance is that we never drop a doozie on the mainpage; Raul did, and on no notice, and then he let the process work. We have lost our greatest recruiting tool; when people see an FA that they can improve, that sparks involvement. I joined Wikipedia in Dec 2005 as an IP, and by May 2006, got involved at FAC and FAR after discovering two dreadful FAs (Asperger syndrome and Hugo Chavez). It was the dreadful part that encouraged me to become a reviewer. Reviewers don't join FAC if they think everything is perfect and above their level of accomplishment; they join because they see something they could do better. Shining a light on bad FAs (via mainpage exposure) and getting more people involved at FAR actually builds our pool of reviewers and increases interest in the process, and gives it more credibility. Showing that we are doing something to address the older, deteriorated FAs also increases credibility. IMNSHO.

Why not use "Tidy up, Tuesday" to run FAs that the Coords know might not be fully up to snuff, but still have the star? (Just think how much fun the ERRORS people could have, but they will have been alerted :) No changes needed to main page design, the Coords get all the older FAs on the main page, nominators are alerted they'd best start cleaning those up, and FAR is re-invigorated if articles don't improve. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:51, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support. With thanks to Hurricanehink for bringing up the broader idea. Outriggr (talk) 04:09, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support. I love what SG said: We have lost our greatest recruiting tool; when people see an FA that they can improve, that sparks involvement - yes, this, 100%! That's exactly the sentiment of my original post. I was so glad to see you all take my idea and run with it. I love the idea of specifically pointing out what the average user can do. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:09, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

This is to be in addition to the regular TFA? Because I don't see it as practical to say to people wanting to nominate a TFA that they've worked hard on, they can't do it because it's Tuesday and we want to run a fixer upper, i.e. "Tough Luck Tuesday". There's also the question of the delicate relations with WP:ERRORS, as evidenced by the thread on Kevin presently at the top of the page. And, basically, I have my doubts that this could work on an article with many faults. A separate space, along the lines of TFL (as suggested in the original proposal) might be an idea to experiment with, but having it as part of TFA might confuse people not privy to these discussions, that on six days we're to run high-quality articles and on the seventh, a lower quality piece.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:32, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Fair point about people wanting to run something on a Tuesday. If we have enough FA's, sure - we can run them both: the normal spiffied up TFA, plus the fixer upper at the TFL slot. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 14:48, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Meh, if someone wants something to run on a Tuesday... then they could wait until the Wednesday? Or if particularly valuable to run on a certain day, then just swap the "Tidy up" article to another day. I don't like the idea of it running in a different slot though: give it the proper TFA slot. Harrias ^talk 18:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support I prefer this idea to the idea of 'sort of nearly, but not there' articles. Partly because it takes away a significant amount of work in being able to find and nominate relevant articles. It could always be extended later if wanted. Harrias ^talk 18:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed change to FAR instructions

Please discuss at FAC talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:31, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Statue

At Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 26, 2020, the tooltip caption is "Statue" (after I capitalized it). But in the article, the caption is "General Walter Krueger", and it looks too real to be a statue. The link provided in the image description http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-m/macarthr.htm is Page Not Found. Art LaPella (talk) 05:46, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

It's certainly not a statue—it's an (uncredited) crop from this photo of MacArthur, Marshall and Krueger. ‑ Iridescent 07:12, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

OK, I removed the word "Statue". Leaving credit issues to others. Art LaPella (talk) 07:21, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Featured article appearing as 'Today's Featured Article' multiple times

@TFA coordinators

I note that some featured articles have appeared as 'Today's featured article' more than once. An example is Rosetta Stone which was 'Today's featured article' on September 14, 2010, and on March 18, 2017.

Please can you tell me why some articles appear as 'Today's featured article' more than once, when there are other featured articles which have never appeared as such. Thank you.Boleslaw (talk) 13:02, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

The discussion which led to the changes is here. There's a list at Category:Featured articles that have appeared on the main page twice. ‑ Iridescent 13:08, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I wasn't previously aware of this and now I am! Boleslaw (talk) 22:09, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

WT:FAC#TFA proposal

Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 19:11, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Is there a plan to put this to a site-wide !vote? This sort of change probably needs widespread consensus before enacting. --Jayron32 17:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
  • People seem to be talking about an RfC above. It's not the kind of thing that I'd even dream of trying to just impose. - Dank (push to talk) 17:10, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
    • --Jayron32 18:27, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
      • The idea is to have plenty of discussion before launching an RFC (which would most certainly be needed, and need to be widely advertised). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of image change at today's TFA

Moved from Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors

• @David Levy: What value does that image add? I think the photo of Poitier was better. It is not like File:Martin TV Show logo.png. Nobody will recognize this nondescript text-logo. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 00:16, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  (self-reverted, pending discussion)
  Coffeeandcrumbs: The logo is an element of the TV series itself, so it's more directly relevant to the subject than a photo of its star (taken several years later) is. If there's no consensus that it adds value, we probably shouldn't be using a non-free image of the title card in the article. —David Levy 00:38, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  @David Levy: The title card has a little more to it. But obviously we can't use that. However, the logo is in no way distinct from the word "Abby". It doesn't show you anything new. If this show was not starring Poitier and Hardison, would anyone even have noticed this shows existence? The two stars are the most notable fact about the show. It was canceled after just a few episodes.

  In the end, I just like having as many black people on the Main Page as possible for this month. So, I may be biased. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 01:02, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Coffeeandcrumbs: In addition to illustration, thumbnails appearing on the main page are intended to draw the attention of readers interested in the subject matter. We display many photographs of people, but a bright logotype against a dark background stands out.
  It certainly isn't my intention to reduce black representation (during Black History Month or any other month). For better or worse, Poitier's ethnicity didn't register with me as a relevant factor. —David Levy 02:26, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  I really don't understand what's going on here. I'd love to hear some feedback on this. - Dank (push to talk) 00:46, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Dank, diff --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 01:09, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  I'm aware ... I just have no idea why that happened. (I'm trying to be nonjudgmental here.) - Dank (push to talk) 01:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Dan: Can you please elaborate? If you find my above rationale puzzling, I'd appreciate any feedback you can provide. —David Levy 02:26, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  I really do not see the value of the other image, and I think the Poitier photo is a better option of the two because it shows the reader who the lead actor is in the show. It seems pretty normal to include an image of actor in these instances, whether it is a television show (Love, Inc.) or a film (Kal Ho Naa Ho). I also do not really understand the need to replace the title card in the article itself as it again seems pretty rather normal to include those in articles on television shows. Aoba47 (talk) 02:09, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Aoba47: It is, indeed, normal to display a photograph of an actor from the production. (Note that I placed the image of Holly Robinson Peete alongside the Love, Inc. blurb.)
  In this instance, the Sydney Tamiia Poitier photo's composition (and the direction in which she's facing) struck me as less than ideal. But maybe it's just me. —David Levy 02:26, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you for the response. That is a fair point, and I hope my comments were not rude because it is a good and productive discussion. I agree the Poitier picture has a not-so-great composition and having her look right off the page is certainly odd, but I think it is more visually interesting and gives readers a great insight on the show rather than the logo image. That is just my opinion though, and I would agree with having either image when a consensus forms. It could be just me too so I do not mean to push down your opinion about it. On a lighter note, this may be the most discussion this show has ever received and will ever receive lol. Aoba47 (talk) 03:02, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Aoba47: I didn't find your comments the least bit rude. (I apologize if my response gave you that impression.) I sincerely appreciate your input. —David Levy 04:24, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you, and I appreciate yours as well. I just wanted to make sure. Aoba47 (talk) 04:25, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I'm puzzled. Does anyone else have any issue with the current image? If so, would you prefer the image David selected (shown to the right), or a cropped or different image of the actress? - Dank (push to talk) 03:35, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Dan: I'm unclear as to the nature of the puzzlement. If anything about the edit or my interactions here is cause for concern/alarm, please bring the specifics to my attention. I welcome candid criticism, which is especially important if I've overlooked a serious issue (and need to determine how I can prevent it in the future). —David Levy 04:24, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm a little puzzled too. There didn't seem to be any errors or issues with the image, so it shouldn't be changed without consensus. We don't usually tinker with the image selection on the day of the TFA in my recollection, without strong reasons. I personally agree with C&C and those who wrote the TFA that the image of the actress is more useful than the name of the show written in a frilly font. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:18, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Amakuru: I explained my reasoning above. I aspired to make an improvement, as I do with the main page's images nearly every day (in part because this was requested of me in 2015 by Dank, who observed that I'd taken on the task most of the time).

My "tinkering" usually goes largely unnoticed, which is fine by me (as conspicuousness isn't the objective). I rarely hear from anyone on the subject, and when I do, it usually is due to some sort of issue. This is fine too, as I'm more than happy to self-revert and discuss the matter.

That's what I've done in this instance. I understand and accept the prevailing opinion that the image replacement (which I undid upon the first complaint and have made no attempt to reinstate) was a change for the worse.

I don't understand how it's downright puzzling that I believed otherwise. People seem to be telling me that I did something utterly nonsensical or patently outrageous. I don't know how else to explain Dank's confusion as to "what's going on here" and remark that he has "no idea why that happened", which appear to suggest something far beyond straightforward disagreement with an otherwise-routine edit.

The last thing I want is to hurt the project in any way. It may be best that I step away from this role – with sincere apologies for any harm caused – until I'm confident that I haven't lost the community's trust. —David Levy 15:57, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your service of many years, you'll be missed. Please consider coming back after your break. - Dank (push to talk) 16:06, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@David Levy: I genuinely hope that I did not say anything to discourage you from working in this area. Although I disagree with you and prefer the Poitier image, I still appreciate the discussion and perspective on the matter. Aoba47 (talk) 23:52, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@David Levy: ditto, I fully echo Aoba47 here. Your day-to-day work on the main page images, which in my recollection usually involves "tinkering" with the sizing, setting the right "upright" values, maybe doing a crop if one is necessary, and all sorts of other image-related things that I don't even fully understand. What I haven't usually see you do, and I found unusual and "puzzling", was a complete change of image as we saw yesterday. Although I called it "tinkering" above, in fact I'd regard that as a much more fundamental change and more of an editorial decision than one which is made predominantly by media and image experts such as yourself. As such, I think such edits should be discussed, pinging Dank and the person/people primarily responsible for the FA and the TFA, and consensus formed. Rather than changes to image boldly made. But other than that, please don't take my comments as a personal attack or any suggestion that you aren't valued here, because you certainly are. I'd echo the calls above to take a break if you feel you need one, but also please to come back and continue your good work when you feel ready. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

• @David Levy: there was no policy-based reason for your removal of the original image, and no local consensus to do so. Please self-revert. ——SN54129 13:37, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Serial Number 54129: That's the first thing I did. (The second was to note my self-reversion in the discussion above.) —David Levy 15:57, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  • @David Levy: You are the finest of editors, and I and many others have much to learn from you. Thank you! ——SN54129 16:11, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

While I can understand the position that the image of the logo wasn't all that great, I find the current photo's composition is so poor that I would advise deleting it. So I don't know what the best option here is.--Khajidha (talk) 17:21, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

If the current image is of such a poor quality, then why not replace it with an image of another actor on the show. Kadeem Hardison's image is already included in the article and he is already mentioned in the lead so I think that would be a better alternative if necessary. The Poitier picture is definitely not the greatest, but I do not the quality is so bad that it should not be included in the blurb. Aoba47 (talk) 20:18, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

The image is fine. Not sure what's meant by the composition being poor. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:28, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

The image is fine. According to my rough analysis upstairs, out of 1000 visitors to the main page, only 3 click on the TFA page (the environment in which they would have the ability to make the more complex image-related judgments of this section) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:41, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments. I am not that familiar with what makes a composition good or bad, but I think the Poitier picture does the job of showing the reader who plays the title character. Aoba47 (talk) 23:52, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Spider-Man again?

@TFA coordinators - I noticed that Spider-Man (2018 video game) is today's featured article (or tomorrow's, depending on your time zone, I think). Wasn't this already a featured article on the Main Page not too long ago? I found in the page history that it's had featured status since September 2019, and I distinctly remember it being displayed on the Main Page within the last few months. Am I remembering this incorrectly? Perhaps it was featured, and then was demoted, and then became featured again? I just want to make sure I'm not going crazy. —Matthew - (talk) 02:18, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

It was linked from DYK previously, perhaps that's what you recall? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:28, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Maybe that's it. I could've sworn. —Matthew - (talk) 16:14, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Feb 20 TFA - Does the TFA really need to main page a terrorist?

Having Adolf Hitler on today's featured article next to a memorial image, with names of Holocaust survivors isn't okay either.

@TFA coordinators I get the argument that all FACs have merit becoming a TFA, but out of all of the TFA candidates surely there's enough that one about a terrorist doesn't need to be featured on the main page of Wikipedia, right? I'd genuinely rather see a breach of norms through a repeated TFA than this. Were there really no guidelines against this sort of thing before?

It's nothing against the editors who developed this page to be FA-worthy, there's just bad taste in making regular users being forced to see this page when they visit the site. Terrorists do what they do partly out of a desire for fame-seeking, especially those that commit suicide attacks like the 9/11 terrorists. I'm not saying the article itself should be deleted or merged, as one conversation on the Talk for this article suggests, but people should be able to find this individual if they seek that information, not through unwillingly being exposed to it and being forced to learn about a terrorist who committed what he did partly to be remembered by society.

Yes, I know this is an emotive-based argument but there are many who went through 9/11 and it's not out of the realm of possibility that one may visit the main page of one of the internet's most visited websites today and see this mass murderer being projected on the front page. There may even be those disturbed individuals who see this terrorist spotlighted on the main page as a trigger incentive that they could be on the front cover of Wikipedia one day if they commit similar atrocities. This isn't the same as TFAing Hitler, Auschwitz, or even Bin Laden which many people already know about and whose infamy is something Wikipedia can't affect, this is TFAing an obscure terrorist who's spotlight on WP will give them undue attention. This should be pulled from TFA. Sleath56 (talk) 06:10, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I didn't schedule this, but I'm totally in support of it being run. We don't run bad guys on dates that seem celebratory, like their birhdays or the anniversary of their deeds, if there is one, but neither do we attempt to sanitise the main page, and the fact that in this case Americans were the victims doesn't change that Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I mean in my view, there's a difference between sanitizing (which would be something like deleting the article itself) and putting a modern obscure terrorist in the spotlight for the average 10 million visitors to the front page to be forced to see an article on his personal life. The issue I have isn't that articles related to American victims shouldn't be spotlighted, this is different from an TFA about the Boston bombing or 9/11 itself. Bin laden everyone already knows about, this particular guy has been likely forgotten in the 19 years since (Another issue, I get 9/11 is no longer "too soon" but this is still a very modern terrorist) and I wouldn't bet against making the millions of people see his name on Wikipedia's main page today as the biggest boost in notability he'd receive in the time since. Surely if there's a time to invoke WP:5P5 its in this case where there's surely enough FA out of the 5000+ extant that could be more deservingly featured instead. Sleath56 (talk) 06:39, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that TFA celebrates the work that has gone into an article, not its subject. If the community approves such articles as FA then it is putting them in the pool from which we run articles. If the community wants to exclude such articles than it needs to tell us that by RFC. I should add that we have been careful not to, say, run Nazis on their birthdays or in this case the terrorist on 9/11.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:04, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree entirely with everyone else other than the OP. We try to avoid causing offense, but we don't and never have operated on the principle of "don't run anything that might upset someone". Forgive the statement of the obvious but Sleath56 at the time of writing roughly 50% of your entire mainspace contribution history has been to 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak, an article which is also currently running on the main page, and I guarantee that statistically a lot more of our readers know someone who's dead or debilitated by covid-19 than know someone who died in 9/11; if anyone tried to tell us to pull that from the main page for fear that it might upset someone, we'd laugh in their face. (At the time of writing we also have two mass shootings, the shooting down of an airliner, and a racially motivated murder on the main page; I don't see you complaining about any of those.) ‑ Iridescent 13:19, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure you saw my point about that "The issue I have isn't that articles related to American victims shouldn't be spotlighted, this is different from an TFA about the Boston bombing or 9/11 itself," which should be clear enough ipso facto. First, the perplexing jab at the insinuation I wouldn't resist plastering an article on the main page so long as it's something I edited is rather rude. If the point of that tangent is an appeal to accomplishment, then 'forgive me for stating the obvious', but a 2000s editor should know better than to make such arguments. I'm not sure how you thought comparing ITN and TFA in this argument stands as a remotely valid proposition here. Obviously putting up an ongoing event is different from reminding 10 million people about an obscure terrorist figure who did what he did to be remembered, I'm not sure why the points of concern I've brought up needn't be addressed here, but to derail the discussion as if my concern is pointedly anything on the main page that may '"upset" American readers' is a frankly bad form response. Sleath56 (talk) 15:00, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Your objections appear to be (a) that as a terrorist, his goal was to draw attention to himself and we're facilitating that, and (b) he's really obscure so why are we featuring him on the main page. But neither of those things are considerations in scheduling TFAs. If the community wants to start cherry-picking FAs for the main page based on moral arguments about whether particular subjects should be given prominence, then that's a change to the procedure that needs to be approved through an RFC. Currently there is no censorship of TFAs on the basis of what the content is, although by convention we do pick the dates and the images more carefully, to avoid unnecessary drama. And on the second point, TFA is undiscerning when it comes to relative "importance" of subjects - the pool we work with is the pool of articles that editors have chosen to promote to FA. It would be great if there were more WP:VITAL articles to display, but we can only work with what we have.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:20, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate my objections being correctly assessed at least. The sum of my argument is that WP:5P5 exists, so this purported firmness of TFA is a false proposition, although I admit the immediacy of this noticed issue makes conducting a RfC too late. I'm truly surprised that there is no guidelines at all for TFAs beyond mere inappropriate dates. On a tangential note, it seems designed to be exploited as opportunities for self-promotion by COI editors, especially considering the latest Signpost. Sleath56 (talk) 15:42, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm now fine with the inclusion as the 9/11 memorial image has been pulled. WP:PROFANE states "Wikipedia also does not favor offensive images over non-offensive images.", having the image placed there was insensitive to the families of the victims killed. As I pointed out in another discussion... we do not feature Hitler next to a memorial of Holocaust survivors. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:47, 21 February 2020 (UTC)