Wikipedia talk:Today's featured list/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

It's been a year already!

List folks. It's been a year. We've done 52 main page appearances and nothing seemed to go horribly wrong. And for that I thank you all. I certainly want to continue the debate over whether we should try to run twice a week (say). In particular, I'm aware that my suggestion page is oriented towards "relevance" of lists, although I'm now also aware that it will mostly cross over with WP:ITN. I'm still undecided if that's a good or a bad thing (e.g. the Eurovision winners list was massively popular, but it wasn't all down to TFL, of course....). Going, say, twice a week would allow more latitude, e.g. the odd "date-relevant" list and the odd "simply fascinating" list would be on the main page and we'd get our opportunity to show all aspects of the diversity of FLs. WFC generously took a bunch of time to write his suggestions above, and, unfortunately, only Giants was able to comment, so it's kind of fallen flat.

So.... what I'd like to know is, where do we go from here (even though I'm sure I've asked that twice, the anniversary of TFL seems like a perfect opportunity to re-ask...)?! Thanks to all of you, once again, for the support in the process so far. As Buzz Lightyear would say, "To infinity and beyond......!".... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:36, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Before I say anything else: cheers to everyone who made this happen, you should all be proud. It's worked for a year, and I think we've really made the featured list process a much more integral part of the community because of it. I couldn't be more happy with its fantastic success.

Now all this said, I think it's time to expand to twice a week. Obviously this would need to be discussed with the community, but I feel that TFL has worked at once a week and we have enough lists to manage it for one more time in a seven day period. My main concern are the lack of comments that can be sometimes be found at Wikipedia:Today's featured list/submissions and the size of TFL reviewership. Does our small TFL community have enough manpower to update the list twice a week? Nomader (talk) 20:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

It may be that we need to change our approach to how lists are selected for main page. WFC had some ideas, and I guess I'm more than open to any reasonable suggestions. I'm by no means a featured article owner, the list process should be down to our community entirely but we do need enthusiasm and people to get involved. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:30, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

My congratulations as well. Time sure flies! I would support TFL's twice per week if there is enough manpower to support the increase. Due to "real life" and other WP interests (my time recently has been spent expanding Good articles over Featured lists), I have not been in the TFL loop as much to assess activity. --Another Believer _(Talk) 21:09, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Going off of WFC's ideas above (I'll comment on them here to try and keep discussion centralized in one place): I really agree with point #1. Maybe a bit of a modification to make it a bit less of a dense graph, but I'm sure some FL writer can step up and create a quality layout for us which will allow users to easily and openly suggest and edit in articles for certain dates. Actually, I agree with almost all the points he makes; I love the fact that this process has remained mostly non-bureacratic and open over this past year. Let's hope if we come to the consensus to try to expand TFL to two days of the week, we don't have to tighten it up too much. Either way, with a much more open summer, I'll hopefully be able to start participating in both FLC and TFL soon. Looks like we could use all the help we can get. Nomader (talk) 06:08, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I made a couple of points in response to WFC's comments, as TRM said, and I want to add that I'm not convinced we have the manpower for a twice-a-week slot, as much as I'd like to see it. WP:TFLS gets very few reviews, and WFC's idea is dependent on having interested users edit the FLs that are proposed; either way, we're battling a shortage of editors, like every other process here. I hope this doesn't turn into a scenario where the directors would have to do all of the work ourselves. We may not have time to do a proper job, and I don't think a community process should depend on two or three people anyway. Giants2008 (Talk) 16:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:TFLS is useful for older FLs, and sometimes reveals ones that need to go to FLRC or need significant improvement before main-page exposure. However, lists that are being promoted every week in 2012 ought to be fit for main page exposure immediately, and in those cases all that should be needed is turning the lead into 1,000 characters for the blurb. With that in mind, we probably ought to be able to do two lists per week, and I think enthusiasm would increase to match. At present, there are only two free slots between now and the end of September, and there are 20 lists ready and waiting at WP:TFLPREP so there's no real urgency to do anything at TFLS - nominate, review, or even look at it! In a way, TFL is so efficiently run that there's no need for the community to do much at the moment except stand back and admire the sound of the gently ticking clockwork as it chugs smoothly along. Bencherlite^Talk 17:05, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Doing the extra FL from PREVIOUS week promotions would be really cool. You could have a good feel for quality. It would kind of be a little bit of a prize to be the best of the week. And much nicer to get rapid display than after left the project or the like.64.134.168.97 (talk) 02:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Amount featured on the main page

How come, there is so many nominations, they are not featured often? How many featured lists on the main page a week is there?--Lucky102 (talk) 19:48, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Once per week. See above section for discussion re: proposal to increase to twice per week. --Another Believer _(Talk) 19:50, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

List of Australian Olympic medalists in swimming

Why is List of Australian Olympic medalists gone. I nominated it and it had no opposes, but someone removed it.--Lucky102 (talk) 14:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The process is going through some sort of crisis, if I understand correctly. Your nomination was removed here, and the removal seems to be related to the section directly above. Here is some explanation about the current situation. Jafeluv (talk) 14:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

No crisis, just a reboot. Lucky102, I left you a message on your talkpage as well. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:51, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I didn't get it, it had a heading, but no message.--Lucky102 (talk) 15:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The WP:EURO newsletter was breaking it. Fixed now :) Jafeluv (talk) 15:32, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Areas over-covered, areas missed

Hello there. I figured I'd drop on by and leave some constructive criticism as you all prepare to double down on main page presence.

Before I get into the criticism part, I first want to congratulate you all on your success.

Now onto the criticism: Wikipedia itself is heavily Western-centric and tends to generate its highest quality content inordinately in a small number of areas, however FL has done, in my opinion, an especially poor job of trying to keep its main page showing diverse. By the end of the year you'll have displayed 80 or so FLs, however you'll have had, 15 sports articles, 8 UK related articles, and 7 US related articles. That's without overlap, which is key to note since almost all of the sports articles are US or UK related. Additionally there are 9 articles on TV/Movies/Video games and 8 articles on non-UK Europe.

You all have got to have enough to work with that you're not going 1 in 5 for sports articles. That's unacceptable in my opinion. Now the US and UK numbers, both being in the 1 in 10 range, don't look worrisome except for that almost all of the sports, TV, movies, music, and even the biographies are US or UK related. That pushes the US and UK easily into the same 1 in 5 range, each. What happened to South and Latin America? Other than one list on Cuba from very early on in 2011, there's been nothing. What happened to Asia? Other than a pair of Japan relates (three if you count the Nintendo one), again, early in 2011, there's been nothing. What happened to Africa? To the Mideast? I counted three between those two regions. What happened to numismatics (coins)? Meteorology (esp. hurricanes)? Archeology? Fine arts? Astronomy? These are all areas that came to mind because they are areas where a lot of high quality content is generated, and yet aren't making it onto FL. Out of 21 items on the prep list you've only got two (the first two) or three (adding in 1930s Jazz) that aren't from already heavily covered regions and subject matters. At this rate you're only going to make the odds worse. The submissions page doesn't have much outside the over-covered areas either. It's got something about Canada (I only saw one Canada thing thus far), one hurricane, and a bio on a writer (albeit a British one), and then a lot of sports, US, and UK stuff.

Please find some way to mix it up a little. I am bringing this to you now so that you can figure it out before you bring the above proposal to the main page. I don't want to oppose your request to get two entries a week, I supported your quest to get one a week, but if I don't see a real effort being made to curb this problem, I will not feel comfortable doing anything short of opposing the expansion. This is also Sven Manguard 20:30, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments Sven, much appreciated. I particularly liked the very quick jump from "before I get to the criticism" to "Now onto the criticism"! But yes, you're right, the nomination procedure for TFL has been predominantly driven by User:Neelix selecting and nominating lists, and me trying to schedule them. The one thing I really don't want to see is TFL deteriorating into the mess that has become TFA, where voting points are required, and articles aren't listed perhaps until the day before they feature on the main page. I'll look more into your stats in due course, one a week has been brilliant for us list folks and I've done my best (and it seems failed) to try to demonstrate how high quality our lists are. You're not the only one to criticise the diversity issues. No excuses, but I can't do it all myself with Neelix, despite his finest efforts. Maybe you could help suggest a pro-active solution to your problem with TFL rather than us trying for twice a week, just to have one of our finest supporters tell us he doesn't support the proposal? For what it's worth, you have my apologies for clearly disappointing you so far. Perhaps you could become more actively involved in nominating lists for inclusion at TFL, and more involved in ensuring they're up to scratch before they're featured on the main page? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Just took a moment to re-read your comment. Thanks again for your interest. The "prep"/"submissions" area is the working model we have to get TFLs up to scratch and ready to go for main page listing. As far as I know, the TFA process has no genuine quality control on the articles featured, but they do have an intricate voting system for what articles make it there. If you would like to nominate a numismatist list, or a meteorology list, or an Asian list, then please do so, and, under the current process, each nom will be assessed for compliance with current standards before being moved to the "ready to go" zone. If I had one serious failing during the last year, it was to make TFL relevant, i.e. make the lists featuring once a week relevant to the date they were featured. This, I realise, can be a bit gimmicky and can result in a loss of exposure to more niche lists (like some of those you've mentioned). However, I have always been open to promoting lists upon reasonable request to the main page, at one a week, it can be a while to ensure you get the coverage you need. I would feature coins, jazz, hurricanes etc in due course, we have astronomy, Japan etc queued up to go but once a week means you have to wait. Twice a week gives us twice the opportunity to broaden our spectrum. But as I said before, I'd love for you to get more involved in the TFL process since you clearly have a lot to offer our project. Thanks again for your input. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The WP:TFAR comparison is an interesting one; I think the two processes need to watch and learn from the other. I think part of the problem is that the TFL nominations page is basically static - what's the point in nominating or commenting, frankly? There are only three main page slots that aren't already filled between now and the end of 2012, but 21 nominations have already been approved at Wikipedia:Today's featured list/prep, which itself is another 5 months of lists - and a further 28 suggestions at TFLS, another 6 months' worth on top! So a list nominated today might get chosen for the tail end of 2013 at the current rate of progress. I know, TRM, that you say that you're happy to run lists at short notice when appropriate and that the lists already selected aren't set in stone etc etc, but unfortunately the appearance of lots of lists in the queue ahead of new nominations might put people off asking you to switch things around.

There's no incentive to comment on suggestions because it's not urgent enough to do so when there's such a large safety-cushion of approved blurbs already in place. Perhaps we've over-prepared the TFL process in our eagerness to show the main page folks what responsible people we are(!)

TFAR went through a similar stage of overload some years ago, when the requests page was overwhelmed with suggestions and it became unworkable: the classic diff in the archives is 163 nominations for the TFA slot in 2007 before the nominations limit and points system was introduced. At seven days of TFA per week, 163 noms equates to over 5 months of suggestions - spot the similarity with TFLS today?!

TFAR is now going through some changes with more slots created for nominations: for a long time there were just 5 date-specific slots available; then a non-specific date slot was added, then a second such slot. Now it's up to 10 date-specific slots and 5 non-specific slots. The "points system" that used to control which articles got one of the precious five slots is less important now that it's much easier to get on the page, and there is discussion about whether to retain it. If TFAR is not careful, it will end up swinging back to an old problem of too many nominations with insufficient attention being paid to them.

I think TFLS has done very well at checking lists against modern standards before approval. Commentators at TFAR are now more prepared than perhaps once they were to point out problems with deadlinks etc. Historically, TFAR hasn't been the sole generator of TFA decisions - it's always supplied a minority of the month's rota with the rest being directly selected by Raul (and more recently Dabomb). Some at TFAR seem keen to reverse that approach. At TFL, I think I'm right in saying that all the selections come from the suggestions page (although obviously when there are many nominations for few slots the selector has considerable leeway - oh the power!)

So, what to do with TFL / TFLS / TFLPREP? I do think we can run more than 1 day per week, which might eventually ease the logjam at the TFLS page, but the same problems could remain without further reforms if nominations increase accordingly. I would do the following:

1. Look at the current list of scheduled TFLs and make it as interesting and representative as possible, swapping in some from TFLPREP if needs be.
2. Then remove some of the scheduled lists between now and Christmas to free up some space and give people an incentive to participate in the next couple of months.
3. Delete TFLPREP; we don't need the safety cushion and we need to live on the edge a bit more. People can renominate as necessary. Lists go from the suggestions page into a vacant slot rather than into a holding area.
4. Put a limit of how many nominations there can be at any one time at TFLS. I would say five.
5. I wouldn't devise a points system necessarily (or if I did it wouldn't be anything as complicated as the TFAR one) but make nominators say why this list deserves a slot soon. Get people to discuss whether the list is up to scratch, or whether it's the best of its type, or whether it's even the best type of list to run given the alternatives and recent history. Make TFLS competitive but friendly.
6. If the nomination isn't well-received, toss it out - perhaps say that lists that don't get "x" supports within one week, or that get "x%" of opposes at any time, will be removed so that another nomination can take its place. If the page gets static, it dies, since only 13 lists per quarter can get that TFL spot.

I'm just glad that I don't actually have to do the hard work of actually deciding anything around here. Many thanks to all those who have been involved in the success of the TFL project, both nominating and selecting. I regularly check T:MP for comments and I can't remember the last time I saw any criticism of the idea of a TFL slot, which is I hope a credit to the system and the high quality of the lists that we run rather than an indication that the list is too far down the Main Page to be visible to readers. But that - in the words of Tinga Tinga Tales - is a who-o-o-o-ole other story... Bencherlite^Talk 22:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Interesting analysis by Bencherlite. It's worth saying that quality was never an issue for me, only diversity. I feel a need to reiterate that before this goes any further. I'll post back some FL suggestions in a bit. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

So I did a bit more digging, and... well... it's not good. The body of items available for selection itself is heavily populated with US, UK, sports, and movies/television items, with very little of anything else. My recommendations are as follows:

1. Make sure that there is at least a four week gap between lists from the same level 2 sorting category and at least 8 weeks between two lists from the same level 3 sorting category (for example, "Everyday life" is level 1, "Sports and recreation" is a level 2 in Everyday life, "American football" is a level 3 category under Sports and recreation, and "College football" is a level 4 under American football). This means that if you run a baseball list on the first week of October, you wouldn't be able to run another sports related list until the first week of November, and you wouldn't be able to run another baseball related article until the first week of December. This will work until you hit two entries a week, at which point you're going to have to tweak it so that you don't run out of stuff to run. Don't let this above cause you to fall into the trap of "okay, it's the first week of the month, we're going to have to run a sports article" or similar overly rigid scheduling. The more predictable it is, the more noticeable the lack of diversity will become.
2. I'm going to create Wikipedia:Today's featured list/Previously run lists in a specific format that will help you track what areas you've been running lists in and what areas you haven't. Keep it updated and be cognizant of the messages that it's telling you.
3. If the lists aren't coming in in areas other than sports, television/movies, UK, and US, do some outreach to people who are doing FAs and GAs in areas that are underrepresented.
4. Related to the above two, if you implement suggestion number 1, don't be afraid to tell people during the outreach that FLs on underrepresented topics are going to wind up on the main page much faster than ones that are overrepresented areas. There are a ton of lists on hurricanes, but we've never had a hurricane TFL. There are a ton of FAs on coins, but we've never had a TFA on coins.
5. Obviously never compromise quality to hit a quota for underrepresented subjects.

I think it's going to take proactivity on some people's parts to get this fixed. When it comes to diversity, nothing is going right on its own right now. That means some manual adjustment will be needed. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh P.S. April 1 is on a Monday in 2013. Best start scouring the featured and close-to-featured lists now. You don't want to get into last minute fights on that.

Running a bit busy at the moment in real life, but since I was asked on my talk page for comments I figured I'd drop in. My thoughts on the issue are divided. From one perspective, I can see why concerns are being raised. FL is heavy on sports and pop culture lists; I think most people know that by now. We all wish that more FLs were being produced in areas like the arts, but in fairness we are dealing with a decline in editing just like every other process is. Many of the incoming editors like to work on pop culture-related lists, and I'm unsure how many want to work on a more diverse selection of lists. That said, not all of our diversity is being utilized at the moment; one glaring area where we could featured more is music lists, ironically. For us to have featured only two music lists is shocking, considering how many discographies and such we have. I'm sure a few of them are on international acts that would curry favor from a diversity front. I also agree that we should have some hurricane lists on TFL.

On the other hand, if we have a substantial portion of FLs that are on one topic, that I believe that topic should receive something resembling fair treatment. If there are one in five FLs that are sports lists, I think we should be running more than one every three months (for example), lest we use up our supply of other lists more quickly. My opinion is that we have overdone the date-related lists to a certain extent, and sports lists were often featured because of date relevance. I believe that lessening the influence of date relevance will help a little in this regard. However, I can't deny that many of the date-relevant lists have proved popular with the readers, who in the end matter a great deal. If the pop culture lists are popular, maybe there is something to be said for that. Personally, I'd rather be stuck with a large percentage of sports and media pages that attract viewer interest than a big group of articles that readers may not be interested in, like what may happen to TFA in the future if they burn through their remaining popular topics as quickly as some want. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, a lot of criticism. Perhaps it would be best if I deleted the current queue from, say mid-October until end of 2012, and let others select the TFLs? From all the analysis above, I'm clearly not getting it right on my own, so I'd appreciate others stumping up some time and effort to help. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't take it as criticism, please - no-one is having a go at you. We're all trying to think of ways to improve the system and to continue the excellent work that you've done to date. I'm involved more at TFAR than TFLS so I was trying to help with some views from that perspective as well as that of a keen FL-er. You are right that more people should get involved, though. Bencherlite^Talk 13:09, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The greatest value to the points system at TFA is, in my mind, that they help to diversify articles because they lose points if something similar has run recently and help to resolve conflicts if two articles can lay claim to the same date. They matter much less for non-date specific articles which have to be checked manually for diversity. While I don't know if TFL really needs something so involved, I do think that the burden should be placed on nominators to show when the last similar list was run to help the delegate decide what to run when. And don't forget to tell people that the delegate can choose to run lists that haven't been nominated in order to balance and diversify the FLs chosen. While date-specific lists may be popular, I suspect that there's a limited supply of them and conservation efforts may be in order.

I will say that, while I have only a few FLs under my belt, the lengthy list of noms when I checked a while back was enough of a deterrent to prevent me from bothering to nom any of my own. Being able to run two a week should help to reduce that backlog, but you really want to limit the absolute number of noms to prevent that from happening.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been out of the loop for a little while, and after today I'll probably be gone for a while longer. Hats off to everyone who has contributed to this discussion, and for the actions taken as a result.

I do have a bit to add to the debate on variety. Surely the single worst thing we can do is be the architects of our own destruction? And the surest fire way of doing that would be to use up our sizeable but potentially exhaustible supply of truly unique lists (the surest way of guarding against it would be to improve the sorts of lists found in the bold link in my sig).

The reason we are suggesting that we go to twice a week is that, relative to FAC, that's how many slots we think we can handle whilst featuring an acceptable degree of variety. Neither TFA or TFL is capable of taking a utopian approach to countering systemic bias. Neither can run a proportionate number of maths articles/lists, nor can either project ensure that one in five of its country-specific slots goes to China, and one in six to India.

Our aim should instead be to be less systemically biased than our reader base, and less systemically biased than our editing base, in the belief that those groups will catch us up and enable us to push the boundaries further in future.

Let me give a few examples of what that means in practise. If 50% of our readers are from the US, but only a third our country-specific lists relate to the US, surely that's progress? I haven't got a clue how accurate a guess "a third" is, but at a glance we have had country-specific lists relating to Cuba, Lithuania, Trinidad and Tobago, Croatia, Germany, Sweden and Indonesia, and multiple ones for Japan, so that's probably a fair guess. If a quarter of lists at WP:FL were nominated by Brits, and 10% of TFLs directly relate to Britain, then – while that proportion is admittedly still too high – that is nonetheless progress. If half of our featured lists relate to popular culture, but only 35–40% of TFLs are pop-culture related, once again we are doing what we can to alter the balance, without sounding the death knell for TFL if the change we want doesn't happen overnight. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 10:33, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Action plan

Okay. We're not going to get much traffic here, so unless any dissents, I'll do the following, to allow others to start making selections:

• Delete the selections from mid-October to Xmas.  Done
• Delete entries in the table I use for tracking selections.  Done
• Remove the prep page altogether.  Done (marked as {{historical}} per Bencherlite's request.
• Remove the content of the submissions page altogether.  Done
• Add a note limiting submissions to ten.  Done
• Encourage discussion on the submissions at the submissions page.  Done
• Tidy up the templates that describe how TFL works.  Done
• Notify the various users who took the time to submit lists for consideration for main page inclusion what's happened.  Done

The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll begin this process at 0800 GMT tomorrow. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

No-one has called for someone to replace you as the selector, unless I'm missing something - you don't get out of it that easily! When you say delete/remove, please don't "admin-delete" entire pages - if necessary, collapse/blank and {{historical}} them to keep the content accessible to those who would like it for reference purposes. Bencherlite^Talk 21:45, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Well I'd like others to take some responsibility for the choices so I'm not solely culpable for some of the shocking choices I've made. Yes, I will be careful not to admin-delete.... The Rambling Man (talk) 06:54, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, system rebooted. Have fun! The Rambling Man (talk) 07:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that the people here are now thinking about trying to spread the representation about. That's really all I wanted. The process redesign may be a step towards that, I'm neither one way not the other on it, but I cerainly was never trying to say that the process was broken or that TRM was failing. Skewed towards certain regions/sections is very different from broken. TFL has been a rousing success thus far, IMO.

My thinking going forward is that while we can't change the past, we can use it to educate future plans. Yes, TFL has run a lot of things that are US and UK related, but a part of that is that the pool of FLs is quite US/UK heavy. I don't think that we need to go out of our way to penalize US or UK related articles, however I think that it might be a good idea to choose a non US/UK article at TFL when there are two equally valid options where one is US/UK related and one isn't, at least until the end of the year. Actually the only subjects that I would explicitly keep off of the main page in the name of balance are association football and baseball, which each have four already. Again though, this would only be until the end of the year. I'm actually rather assuming that you're going to get two entries a week comes 2013, and that will mean that scheduling has to get rethought anyways. So yeah, I guess for the future I'd recommend keeping Wikipedia:Today's featured list/Previously run lists updated, and making sure that you're not running FLs from the same level 2 header there more than once a month (after it hits two FLs a week, more than once every two weeks). Sorry to be such a bother. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:33, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Hoping that some other folks step up and start selecting from the submissions page to fill the empty spaces between mid-October and Christmas now. There's been sufficient interest in the lists nominated there, so it shouldn't be too difficult to satisfy the demands of those who asked for a change in the TFL selection. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Main page TFL rewording

A discussion at T:MP has resulted in two changes to the "featured article" section: (1) the TFA section is now headed "From today's featured article" and (2) the "more..." link at the end has been changed to "Read the full article". For consistency, I have edited the main page to say "From today's featured list" and edited the TFL template to say "Read the full list". I neither participated in nor closed the discussion; I'm just notifying you all of the result. Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 21:05, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Images

Resolved

 – Fixed by User:Edokter. Bencherlite^Talk 20:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Is just me or there is a problem with how the images are displayed in the page? Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 23:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not just you. In Firefox (admittedly an old version) I don't get the first image, and the second is vastly larger than it should be... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I had the problem last night on my home laptop (Firefox, pretty up to date) and today on my work PC (Windows 7 Pro and IE9). I have left a message at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Image size problem at Wikipedia:Today's featured list calling for reinforcements! Bencherlite^Talk 15:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Reinforcements arrived and sorted it. No more scary large photos. Bencherlite^Talk 20:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Old nominations on the submissions page

At the moment, the oldest nomination at WP:TFLS was added in September 2012, nearly 4 months ago. It has received no comments for nearly 3 months. I would suggest that if a list hasn't been selected after, say, 2 months it should be removed from the page (without prejudice to a future nomination in due course) to allow other nominations a chance to get on the page. Otherwise the page becomes static, uninteresting to those looking to nominate/comment and unhelpful to schedulers who are left with the same options week after week. Thoughts? Bencherlite^Talk 16:24, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

That seems like a reasonable idea in general, although I think it's a bit harsh on the cricket list, which is the old one from September. It has more support than most of the other nominations, but we're trying to avoid having too many lists from the same categories running too close together, and have been limiting the sports lists to one per month. When I get a chance, I'll schedule that list and clear up the other old noms. I do hope we get more commenters here at some point, so that it becomes easier to gauge the community's feelings on the older noms and avoid having a static page. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:42, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Question

I was just curious to know, does the main page change for each time zone i.e. Australia gets the featured list on their main page 15 hours before the United States, or does it all change in one go i.e. midnight UTC? Betty Logan (talk) 01:33, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The main page changes for all the world. If the clock is at 00:00 in the UTC, it will change for all countries. For example, I live in Mexico and the MP changes at 18:00 hrs. The same happens to other places, depending on their time zone. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 02:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

April Fools

Just a heads up to everyone, as today April 1 (and thus April Fools Day) falls on a Monday, I've created Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Featured List for editors to select a... proper list for the occasion. Cheers! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:04, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, we (or I) have decided. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:43, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

TAFI being deployed to Main Page on April 15

This is a notice to let you all know that Today's articles for improvement will be deployed in just under twenty-four hours. For those who have not been following the developments of the section, it will be placed on the left side of the Main Page, beneath DYK, as at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow. This should not affect TFL substantially. Comments and questions should be directed to Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement. -- tariqabjotu 00:16, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for comments on the Main Page

The 2013 main page redesign proposal is a holding a Request for comments on the Main Page, in order to design an alternative main page based on what the community asks for. As this may affect your project, I would encourage you to leave feedback and participate in the discussion.

Evad37 (talk) (on behalf of the 2013 main page redesign proposal team) 00:38, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Blurb

When one is nominating a list for TFL consideration, by how much can the 1,000 blurb be based on text from the article? Is it okay just to copy paragraphs from the article directly into the blurb, or do they really need to be rewritten slightly? Thanks. A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 10:14, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Twice weekly

This section is to be used to collate information and statements for inclusion into a request at Talk:Main page for Today's featured list to go twice weekly. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:55, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Working draft

Formal proposal to expand Today's featured list to two days per week (suggested section header)

In June 2011, a cross-section of the community unanimously supported a proposal to add Today's featured list (TFL) to the Main Page every Monday. Fifteen months on, we feel that there is now sufficient interest to justify an expansion. Having taken into account a variety of factors, outlined below, we propose that TFL should in future run on Mondays and Thursdays.

Since the introduction of TFL, the featured list community has succeeded in maintaining quality standards for lists that run on the Main Page. In addition, it has featured many lists that have been popular with readers; 19 lists have attracted more than 10,000 page views. Thirteen of those lists have run this year, showing an increase in reader interest in TFL. The process has also served to promote the improvement of lists, and the featured list candidates (FLC) process has seen an influx of new contributors since TFL began.

Since the beginning of 2012, 36 featured lists have been presented on the main page, with an average viewership of just below 10,000 on that day. This is a 40% increase in viewership over the lists featured in 2011. Moreover, the highest viewership (for Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award) of over 61,000 views was around 20% higher than the featured article (Prince Louis of Battenberg) on the same day. Despite not being in the prominent top-left position of the main page, Today's featured list has outranked the TFA for page views more than once.

[A paragraph about practical issues of how many lists we have in hand, the success of the FLC process and its ability to keep up with the increased demand of twice-a-week exposure.]

As of the beginning of September 2012, there are over 2,300 featured lists, only around 70 of which have been featured on the main page. That immediately gives us a massive pool of lists which can be drawn from to guarantee the additional slot will always have candidates to fill them. Also, this year, to the end of August, the FLC process has promoted 149 lists, at an average of nearly 19 per month. These lists naturally meet the current criteria and are natural candidates for immediate inclusion on the main page as any rework required would be minimal. To cope with twice-weekly appearances, we would need at most nine lists a month to be scheduled; we've got that covered.

[A paragraph on what we believe we can achieve with the extra day: increased coverage of the days of the week, featuring a more representative sample of the lists we have while staying diverse, etc]

Featured lists, like their article counterparts, cover a hugely wide-ranging set of topics. An extra day per week on the main page will allow the FL community to increase the diversity of those featured. It would also enable us to find a better balance between featuring timely content – such as Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award the day after the Super Bowl – and ensuring that lists which don't lend themselves to a particular date can be featured in a timely fashion.

[Disclaimer outlining why we do not want more than two days per week]

It's important to emphasise that, at this point in time, we do not seek an expansion beyond two days per week. We are mindful of the need to carefully manage our supply of lists, to ensure that we can continue to feature as wide a variety in the future as we do today. Of equal importance is our desire to continue to quality check lists as far as possible, and ensure that errors are few and far between.

[Technical section probably belongs here]

Technical impact on the Main Page is nil. The current code for TFL was written with the anticipation that it could be expanded to more then one day in the future.

[closing remarks, thank you for reading, plus the signature of whoever posts]

Featured lists have, I believe, enriched the main page now for over a year without any serious issues. I hope the community would agree that allowing us to feature twice a week would enrich Wikipedia by increasing the diversity of topics on the main page.

That's roughly how I think it should be structured. I'm happy for anyone to edit it by the way. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 14:36, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I've reformatted so the guides to paras are in italics, and added some starter text for some of it. Also happy for it to be hacked around.... The Rambling Man (talk) 16:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Added the start of another paragraph, and took out an excess wikilink. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:16, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

In case you all didn't notice and want to work it into your proposal, Featured Sounds died a horrible, fiery death, and isn't going to get on the main page anytime soon. Since constraints placed by the presence of FS factored into your original proposal, I figured it'd be worth mentioning. This is also Sven Manguard 19:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I think most of us saw FS die a death, mainly due to implosion of the folks running it. We have an increasing community, plenty of good hands on deck, and an increasing number of promotions. What FS's demise has to do with us increasing our slight visibility on the main page is .... mysterious to me. Would you like to clarify that? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

What I meant was that when you made your original proposal, FS still looked like it was going to happen, which meant that FL was not supposed to be the only non-daily feature. I'm not sure if how that effected FL (did it effect date selection, did it sway the community more one way or the other), but the fact that FS imploded means that FL is now the only non-daily feature. That means that if you wanted the date FS selected, it's now open to you. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I guess now we should wait a while to see how the new system pans out. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Progress?

Are we still going to go through with this? I could have sworn I did add some technical comments, but it's not there anymore. — Edokter (talk) — 10:53, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I would like to, but as you can see by the timestamps, the original proposal somewhat fell by the wayside about this time last year. If we could ensure the main page can handle two TFLs, our TFL process can certainly handle supplying lists into it. I don't recall the technical input from you, Edokter, at all I'm afraid. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:57, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

September 30 Recently Featured does not display correctly

Good afternoon. Does anybody else notice that the "Recently featured" line at the bottom of "Today's featured list (September 30)" displays "Recently featured: [[]] – [[]] – [[]]"? Kind regards, Matt (talk) 01:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Expansion of TFL on the main page

It has been over a year since the last stillborn attempt to gain a second slot for featured lists on the main page (see #Twice weekly and #Areas over-covered, areas missed, above). Since that time—and as a result of that discussion—we've had a revamp in the way TFLs are approached and selected, and a number of other changes in FL oversight. It now seems appropriate that we turn again to the question of whether there should be a second TFL slot on the front page.

Background

In June 2011 a unanimously supported proposal to add Today's featured list (TFL) to the Main Page every Monday was passed. Since 13 June 2011 a FL has appeared on the front page every Monday. The FL process is strong, healthy and can cope with a second slot on the front page. As of 19 November 2013 there are 2,529 featured lists; in the first ten months of 2013, 197 lists were promoted, and all naturally meet the current criteria demanded by the community. There are, therefore, a sufficient number of high-quality lists available from which to select.

Process

1. This discussion on the merits, problems and potential approach in order to gain general consensus to go to RfC;
2. Once a consensus develops, I will post here a suggested RfC text to include wording and rationale (currently in user space: please feel free to edit or comment);
3. RfC on Talk:Main Page to gain community-wide consensus.

Discussion

Please ouline your thoughts on the above, considering the key points:

• Is there a consensus here to go forward to a formal RfC on the talk page?
• What is ideal: two, three or more times a week?
• If more than one day, which days?

All comments on the three above points, are welcome. - SchroCat (talk) 09:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• I strongly support TFL running more frequently. The TFL process has worked well and displayed a variety of fine work with few complaints. Indeed, I can't remember the last time I saw a "yuck, what's that list nonsense on the main page?"-type comment. Three times a week sounds good to me at the moment - perhaps Monday, Thursday and Saturday so that weekdays and weekends are included. Bencherlite^Talk 09:55, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

  I support the proposed expansion, but I believe that we should stick to weekdays for the time being.
  As I recall, Monday was selected because we intended to assign the space to featured sounds on Saturday and Sunday (the days on which users are least likely to access the site via work/academic computers on which audio playback isn't feasible). In case WP:FS is revived at some point (or other weekend-suitable material needs a slot), it's best to leave Saturday and Sunday open. Given the availability of four additional weekdays, this should't pose a problem.
  If TFL is expanded to two days, I suggest Monday and Friday (first and last weekday). If TFL is expanded to three days, I suggest Monday, Wednesday and Friday (every other weekday). —David Levy 10:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

  Featured sounds is dead, and has been for two years. Some discussions took place earlier this year at WT:FSC about starting again but there's been nothing added there for months. It will take a long time for FS 2.0 to get going to the point where appearing on the front page is a realistic aim. And I don't know what other "weekend-suitable material" there might be that's clamouring for a main-page slot. Which is all a long-winded way of saying that excluding the possibility of a weekend TFL seems unnecessary to me, particularly as we are bound to have some date-relevant material (Saturdays being a good day for sports events and WP:FL having lots of sports lists). Bencherlite^Talk 11:10, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

  It will take a long time for FS 2.0 to get going to the point where appearing on the front page is a realistic aim.
  I don't doubt that, but it's realistic to anticipate that we'll want to feature some sort of audio and/or video content on the main page in the not-too-distant future.
  And I don't know what other "weekend-suitable material" there might be that's clamouring for a main-page slot.
  TAFI springs to mind. Its full-time slot in the left-hand column didn't work out, but it's currently being reworked for a potential part-time slot in the area occupied by TFL on Monday. Given that TAFI is intended to invite users to edit the article(s) listed, Saturday and Sunday (when the fewest readers are busy with work/academics) are logical days.
  Which is all a long-winded way of saying that excluding the possibility of a weekend TFL seems unnecessary to me,
  I don't advocate that we exclude the possibility. Perhaps TFL will even become daily at some point. I assert that we needn't expand TFL to weekends now, given the availability of weekdays and relative intuitiveness of a Monday/Friday or Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule.
  particularly as we are bound to have some date-relevant material (Saturdays being a good day for sports events and WP:FL having lots of sports lists).
  I'm not very knowledgeable in the area of sports, but I assume you mean that Saturday is a popular day on which to hold major events. If so, this might be region-specific. My impression (again, as a non-fan) is that the U.S. favors Sunday, particularly for American football (its most popular sport). Televised U.S. award ceremonies (e.g. Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Tonys, Golden Globes, etc.) typically occur on Sunday as well (along with the UK's BAFTA Awards, I see).
  In that respect, switching from Monday to Saturday and Sunday might make the most sense, and a "weekend" slot is memorable and easy to advertise.
  The question, as discussed above, is whether we want to reserve the weekend for something else. If we do, I think that expanding TFL to Monday/Friday is the most logical step. If we don't, why not drop Monday in favor of Saturday and Sunday? (As I mentioned, the belief that a featured sound section was on its way was the main reason behind TFL's Monday scheduling in the first place.) —David Levy 17:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

  As one of the old Featured Sounds directors, my opinion is that you should consider Featured Sounds as a non-issue in your planning. Even if people were to revive the process (which will take time), and get it back up to the point where it is producing featured sounds at a reliable rate (which will take more time), the process still needs to figure out it's answer to what I call the "2007 issue" (a massive gulf in quality between what was promoted several years ago and what would be promoted today, that exists across most featured content processes). It will be a long and contentious process to go through every sound file and decide whether or not it would meet modern standards or not. Considering how contentious discussions were at Featured Sounds when it got shut down, I'm not sure it's a good thing to even consider trying right now. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:24, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• I think it's full time for TFL to run twice a week. RFC is fine. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:23, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
• I think that, as Crisco said, we should start by asking a second day, and then a third. I still believe that until we reach some 3,500-ish featured lists, we cannot afford to ask for many days. A lot of the early promoted lists are in bad shape and they cannot appear on the Main Page without some degree of rework. I'd say that we have Mondays (as we have) and Thursdays. I like the weekend idea but then it would be too close to Monday. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 12:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
  • 2,500 FLs is 50 year's supply at 52 a year; at 365/year that's about 7 years. So there's no reason not to do one per day other than the diversity issue, which I agree is important. I understand that some of the oldest FLs need to be overhauled before they're ready for the spotlight of TMP, then we need to put together a process to do that if one doesn't already exist. One possible way to get rid of some of the imbalance might be to declare, forex, "cricket FL week" to help get rid of some of those quickly. The fewer we do, the more diversity matters, IMO, as it can seem to give undue weight to various topics if there's only one per week. Remember that we're promoting around 200 a year so the anticipated supply we can count on will be much longer than 7 years. I would just hope that we can automate the process of actually posting the list on TMP so minimize the burden on the delegates/whoever's actually doing the scut work after the lists are selected.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
    • As someone going through this with Portals right now, I would caution that the people in charge of FLs look at the quality of the old FLs before they make any statements about how many they really have. You very well might find that you have 100 or 200 or 300 FLs from 2007ish that are so bad that you wonder how they could have ever been promoted. A lot of the FPs from 2007 aren't up to snuff today. Certainly a lot of the FPOs from 2007 aren't up to snuff today. You need to check before this goes any further. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:05, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
      • I'm sure we can say the same thing about all featured content (not to mention GAs etc). That aside, there were 239 FLs last year, and 204 so far this year: we need 104 FLs to cover the need twice weekly, or 156 if the consensus is to go for three times a week. - SchroCat (talk) 00:15, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
        • I'm not opposed to you all expanding to two or three days a week. I just don't want you to wind up in the same situation that I'm in with Portals now, scrambling to try and save as many old ones as possible after stumbling into a problem much larger than you thought it would be. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
          • You're obviously right in saying that there will be a significant and indeterminate number of lists which would need work to bring them back up to scratch. Lists promoted in the past 2–3 years can be assumed to pretty much comply with current standards, excluding the effects of link rot and subsequent changes to the MoS. Some older ones will be up to scratch; some wont. Regardless, we still have a significant supply of useable lists, and even if the problem with FLs is as bad as it is with Portals, the net promotion rate of new FLs is enough to sustain multiple appearances a week. That does not mean I necessarily agree with an expansion, simply that I do not think quality would be the barrier. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 03:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
• As someone who was working on TFL months before it even hit the Main Page, and who has argued for expansion in the past, I don't think the timing is right for multiple fixed slots. Lies, damned lies and statistics only tell a small part of the story, but what is beyond dispute is that main page interest in TFL has not increased in 2013 relative to 2012.

  TFL scheduling is in theory easy to do, but maximising the section's potential is a tough job. Diversity and the overall level of interest are for me the key metrics, and from my time as a more hands-on participant at TFL, unfortunately those appear to be conflicting aims. Date relevance and guaranteed big hitters are by far the most powerful tools at the scheduler's disposal to try to manage that conflict. If the scheduler can slip in a good proportion of well-timed lists per year, and during long periods with a date relevant list, slip in a very occasional list which is guaranteed to attract hits whenever it is posted, then this will sustain a level of interest which will ensure that truly niche lists get as much attention as possible.

  Timing is the issue at the moment, rather than selection. Monday was an utter waste of List of Ashes series (it will get far more than 4,725 hits on the day the series is decided, without any Main Page exposure) and July 2013 was a very strange time to post List of Presidents of Venezuela, given that there were elections in January and April, and that the most famous president in the country's history died in early March. It's very easy for someone who is becoming less and less active on Wikipedia to criticize these decisions with the benefit of hindsight, and while I'm sure my comments will be read that way that is not my intention. My point is that we don't have the structure in place to prevent such abberations, nor does the director have the flexibility s/he needs to schedule lists at the optimum time, sometimes weeks in advance, sometimes at very short notice – be that Monday or another day of the week.

  So to get back to the central question, what TFL ideally needs is one fixed day per week, and the flexibility to schedule one additional list per week based on date relevance. But that flexibility should not be handed out unless we are confident that it would be used wisely.

  My suggestion would therefore be twofold. One, that FL directors tread on eggshells to avoid scheduling potentially date-relevant lists at sub-optimal times on either a random or a badly-selected Monday, and they will need support from others to spot any potential issues with the schedule before it is too late.

  Two, we should provisionally allow TFL to post on two days per week. Always on a Monday, and potentially one additional list on a date which would vary depending on the date relevance of that specific list. That second list would not be an automatic entitlement: the default situation should remain that TFL has one list, on a Monday. The potential second slot would be for situations where that week is clearly the optimum time to post a specific list, but Monday is clearly not the optimum day. For example, if a UK General election were to occur on a Thursday, then I imagine the consensus would be that Friday would be the optimum time to post List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom (assuming that the result was an outright majority) – by Monday the new Prime Minister would be relatively old news. We should use the obvious existing Main Page infrastructure to discuss the possible addition of a second list to the Main Page slot – I won't explicitly spell out what that means until I can gauge the level of support for the idea of a floating second day, but my code shouldn't be too difficult to crack. There should be no entitlement to two lists a week: if there is not consensus that a specific date is the optimum time to post a specific list, then there should not be a second TFL that week. If consensus were that a relevant list should be posted on a Monday, TFL would not get an additional slot that week, and the non-date-specific list would need to be rescheduled for a future Monday.

  TL;DR version: opposed to a second fixed day, but would support one fixed day with a second list scheduled when there is date relevance. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 03:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hi WFC, Thanks for your thoughts. I'm not entirely sure that the 'floating' date would work. For a start, who decides what is a suitable reason for a list? For example, do we have to have an RfC every time we think of something, to justify the inclusion, or is this at the behest of the FL director? If someone wanted to, and if they looked globally enough and thought laterally enough, then I am sure they could find some suitable list for pretty much every week! That, of course, pre-supposes that people have enough time to try and foresee what is globally "of interest"—and not just every week: doing it for any week would be a time consuming and laborious task. Furthermore, I think that the consistency of appearing on set days every week will increase the expectations of readers: having an unexpected list "drop in" when it's not expected will not increase the numbers.

Regarding the Ashes, it's a debatable point about which Monday, but the eve-of-series showing is as good as the end-of-series Monday. If we had a second day (Thursday has been mooted above), then we could have run the list on the opening day—far more apposite. As for the List of Presidents of Venezuela, as far as my memory recalls it, there was an attempt to put it on the page on the Monday after Chavez's death, but there were issues with the article that were not fixed in time, which is why is wasn't as timely as we wanted.

Personally, I'd prefer three days a week, but I am conscious that the diversity of choice would be limited by going down that route, so would happily settle for a second day at the moment, with a review in a year or so for a further extension. In time I would like to see a TFL on every day—in line with some other featured content—but we are a few years off that at the moment. - SchroCat (talk) 11:59, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

On the specific points of The Ashes and Presidents of Venezuela, I would love to be proven wrong. I would love someone to be able to tell me that we gave those lists the best possible platform by scheduling when we did, and that we could not have attracted more casual readers, and potentially editors, by scheduling those lists at another time (potentially later, in the case of the Venezuelan list). But that's a pretty hard argument to make based on the numbers it was putting up without any Main Page support in July and August.

On the point of the floating day, yes, that will involve more work. But if there is not sufficient interest within TFL for identifying and appropriately scheduling lists which are relevant at the time, then TFL is doomed in the long run anyway, whether it has one slot or seven. I don't take any pleasure in saying that, given the amount of time I put into getting it onto the Main Page in the first place. I would repeat my vague comment from my previous contribution, that the Main Page already has an area in which the merits of topical scheduling are discussed. Two, if you really think about it, and the second one would arguably be a better venue. But there would need to be a strong consensus for the idea of a variable day before we could even consider approaching those processes and suggesting a bit of co-action.

When active, my attitude to scheduling any list was "is there a day in the next few years which would attract more hits than scheduling it today?". If the answer was yes, I would pester TRM to remove it from rotation until that time. He didn't always agree with my individual observations on articles to delay or to bump up the schedule, and that was his prerogative, but on the whole we saw eye-to-eye on the general approach. I'm mindful of overstating my level of involvement with TFL – TRM and Neelix deserve far, far more credit for its continuing success than I do – but the results of the "eggshells" approach to scheduling lists in 2012 are plain to see.

Diversity tended to take care of itself (any bias towards certain topics reflected the stock of Featured Lists available). I therefore used two statistical measures to judge TFL's progress. Firstly, that the number of lists with over 10,000 and under 5,000 hits were as close to being in balance as possible, and secondly that the mean and median hit count should increase over time (the 5,000 and 10,000 thresholds were moving targets, which should increase as TFL became more established). Both measures were highly arbitrary, but my rationale was that if you are on the Main Page you should regularly be attracting significant numbers of readers, that the longer you are there the more attention you should be drawing, and that at the same time we should not be afraid to schedule obscure topics which are unlikely to break through the (arbitrary and modest) glass ceiling of 200 hits per hour from one of the highest traffic pages on the internet.

I'm not inclined to do the number crunching for 2013, but at a glance the mean hit count has significantly dropped, the median hit count has significantly dropped, and five lists in ten months have failed to garner 50 hits per hour, a threshold that was never reached in 2011 or 2012.

I'm sorry for a second consecutive wall of text, but I would rather over-explain than under-explain my position. I really, really want TFL to reach its full potential. Heck, if you scroll up you can even see the proposal I drafted for expanding in September 2012. But I don't see what a second day at this point would achieve, unless it was explicitly designed for featuring date relevant lists on the best possible day, whatever day that happened to be. For one reason or another interest in TFL has dipped, and when comparing this year to last year I simply do not accept that only having one day is the driving factor. I would prefer that we identify and tackle the root cause of the decline, rather than throw extra slots at TFL in the hope that this alone will reverse the trend. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 13:48, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

For the Ashes, I'm really not sure that we would have received more readers on the last Monday of the series, as opposed to the first: both are perfectly appropriate dates. I'm really not sure you’re your stat views are trying to show either: the long-term view suggests a greatly heightened interest in the page because of the main page appearance. I'm also not sure I'd make such a fetish of page views: they are not the be-all and end-all of everything and although have some importance, quality is of far more importance than quantity, which is why we have some rather esoteric subjects on show, rather than just always concentrating on vote winners. Last year's thread complained about diversity: we have addressed that over the last fourteen months, but one of the side-effects of that has been to push down page views for the more abstruse topics.

A 'floating day' just simply isn't worth the candle—unless it is an infrequently-used third day, in addition to a regularly-scheduled second day. To correct any confusion: "if there is not sufficient interest within TFL for identifying and appropriately scheduling lists which are relevant at the time, then TFL is doomed in the long run anyway, whether it has one slot or seven" just isn't what I'm saying. We are all volunteers with lives away from Wiki: additional needless and time-consuming tasks do no service to anyone. We need a system that does not add unnecessary and complicated levels of confusion: we need a smooth, simple process that is open, transparent and that doesn't open the system to accusations of abuse.

As to the question of delaying scheduling until future dates, we do that already: there's even an example in the current suggestions—see WP:TFLS#List of songs written by Emeli Sandé for an example of that.

As far as I see, the point of a second day is relatively simple—Featured Lists are a strong and healthy part of the project's output and they provide content whose standards are as high and exacting as other Featured output. It is in order to best showcase that output that a second day would be appropriate. One of the benefits of a third day is to assign more appropriate lists to the corresponding dates, but it is not the only one. If you had a different view when you suggested the same thing last year, I'd be delighted to hear it. - SchroCat (talk) 16:18, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The suggestion that the Main Page appearance has had an impact on Ashes page views is selective to say the least. The Ashes are now underway, which will have a natural effect on views. Without any Main Page exposure, it got more attention on several days during the previous series (July and August) than it did on Monday.

My point on page views is a very simple one: esoteric lists have been a core part of TFL from the very beginning, yet they are getting far fewer reads now than they ever did before. Why? Are they now of lower quality, and therefore people are deciding not to bother? Of course not, and therefore there is surely another reason. There of course needs to be a balance of mainstream and esoteric subjects. It's not for me, or Sven, or any one person to try and dictate the precise mix, but what is clear is that if you don't showcase those lists which do have date relevance at the optimal times, and if you don't make good use of the occasional big-hitter, then all TFLs will in the long run garner less attention. The decline in TFL readership is an indisputable fact, but I do agree with you that it's for the community to determine whether that drop in attention is a problem. Maybe I am on my own there.

I took Sven's opinions on how best to manage TFL with a pinch of salt, given that his previous involvement in bringing a newer process to a Main Page proposal culminated in the complete shutdown of Featured Sounds. The geographic element of his argument was that fewer than half of TFLs related specifically to North America and Western Europe, and that this was in his opinion far too high a percentage. I dismiss that outright: TFL is better than many other Main Page sections in that regard. The valid part of his argument is that we did too much sport, movies, videogames and awards, but with the possible exception of sport that is still the case. Is 2013's set of selections really any more diverse than 2011 or 2012? I'm willing to be convinced. TFL has always been less systemically biased than the FLC promotions that feed it, but ultimately a balance has always had to be struck. If TFL does not to some degree reflect FLC promotions, we will fast run out of diverse content.

You summarily dismiss the idea of a floating second day, without any explanation of why this would be significantly worse a floating third day, which you have expressed at least some receptiveness to.

I'm glad to see that we still take some account of date relevance.

You ask what has changed in 14 months. Back then I would have said "Featured Lists are a strong and healthy part of the project's output and they provide content whose standards are as high and exacting as other Featured output, albeit a bit less diverse." Now I would say "Featured Lists are a strong and healthy part of the project's output and they provide content whose standards are as high and exacting as other Featured output, albeit a bit less diverse. However, we're not good at effectively targetting this content to our readers, and reader interest is waning as a result." —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 17:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the general community that comments on issues at Main Page talk would support a floating date. They like having all of the Main Page's ducks in a row, and I fear that they wouldn't like not having a specified date when the section would run. Also, I'm not sure that a decline in TFL readership is as significant as the above comments portray. If you investigate TFA readership figures, I think you'll find a decline there as well. TFA isn't running as many major topics as they used to, and many of the articles that run tend to come from several handfuls of topics, such as mushrooms, battleships, and roads. In reality, the last sentence of the previous comment applies to TFA as well. Does this mean that the section shouldn't be on top of the Main Page every day? Of course not. TFA is great at introducing quality content to readers and providing examples of the level of work Wikipedians can do. TFL, though lower-profile than TFA, can accomplish these tasks too, and unlike TFA we haven't used most of our high-interest content yet. Personally, I wonder whether all of the Main Page sections are going through a drop in interest, and whether TFL should be punished if this is the case. Are there any figures available on DYK or ITN? Giants2008 (Talk) 22:25, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I went through the TFA stats for January-October in 2012 and 2013 (five minute job, as the format used there is very spreadsheet friendly) and hits dropped from roughly 33,800 to roughly 27,300 per day. I haven't done full numbers for TFL because it is a laborious process (you can't just copy the columns and pop them into a spreadsheet like you can for TFA), but from my mental maths the mean hit count for January-October 2013 looks like it is in the 5-6k range, which suggests a drop of at least a third on 2012. That guestimate is based on my numbers from January-August 2012 – which would put the decline at well over 40% – but I've lowered my estimate to account for the TFL slowdown in the last four months of 2012. Someone more committed than me may be willing to do the full numbers, but what is beyond doubt is that TFL shrunk a lot faster than TFA in the same period, despite the fact that we haven't used most of our high-interest content yet.

On the point of a floating day being a hard sell on the Main Page, there are two ways around that. The bold way would be to do what we did in 2011: acknowledge that what we wanted to do (Mondays only) would not be particularly popular, but make such a watertight case that no-one had serious grounds on which to object. If we are not 100% united on the idea then that is not an option. The conservative way would be to see if Bencherlite is of a similar mind to Raul back in 2011, who suggested that occasionally using TFA for date-relevant lists might be a possibility. As I recall we didn't follow that idea up because he and other FA directors pitched it as an alternative to actually having a stand-alone TFL section: the fear being that if TFL didn't have its own section, it would be easy to remove. The difference now is that TFL has its own established section, and there is no realistic prospect of the community stripping us of it. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 16:35, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

So both articles and lists have dropped by 5-6K? Percentages are not the only metric: the fact that the raw numbers have dropped by very similar amounts is concerning for the main page overall, but does not necessarily mean that this is just an FL issue. Either way, I'm not sure that making a fetish of the stats is overly constructive: they are not the be-all and end-all of output and not the sole determining factor for doing or not doing anything. If they were, then Bencherlite (talk · contribs) would not run pages on mushrooms or hurricanes, and Giants2008 (talk · contribs) wouldn't run high-quality but low-view articles about schools in minor areas or semi-obscure film awards, to name the two most diverse and lowest-viewed lists. However both Giants and Bencherlits run the low-view pages because we don't chase page views: we leave that to Google et al.

I am really not convinced that a second slot as a part-time floating day would be overly constructive to the project as a whole: it is a lot of additional work and distraction for a lot of people for a very limited overall benefit. If FL has to go cap-in-hand to beg for a floating slot on a specific day, I for one would rather it was both for a third slot in a week and that the request for a third slot is very infrequent for very special occasions. However, I am convinced that a fixed second slot would be an advantage to the project, with the additional benefit that it would also be advantageous to FLs too.

What this thread is about is an additional set day: the limited consensus of all participants so far appears to be two set days (although three days also seems to get a good shout too). Before the RfC text is fully drafted and posted here for further comment, is there anyone else who would consider that the idea of an occasional 'floating day' is deserving of further consideration? - SchroCat (talk) 23:01, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

While not without merit, I don't regard the floating day idea as the most viable option.

I share your concern regarding reader expectations. Inconsistent scheduling would cause confusion, disappointment and reduced exposure; readers who saw a featured list on Thursday of last week would expect to find one on Thursday of this week. Whoops, it was scheduled for Wednesday, so they missed it and don't understand why it's absent.

Another consideration is how a floating day would affect other content that might share the slot. It's hypothetical at this point, but at least one project plans to seek such an arrangement. Adding a second or third fixed day for TFL would leave open plenty of days, but how would a variable day be accommodated? Would only the days not assigned to something else be in play, or would other rotating sections be expected to vacate their normal slots or hop around the week for TFL's benefit (and if so, how would this be coordinated)? Would certain days be left open permanently (thereby reducing the number of slots available to other content) in case they're wanted for TFL?

Granted, no other content currently occupies the slot. But once something becomes a main page fixture, it's exceedingly difficult to remove. Down the road, a proposal to use the slot for other material on one or more of TFL's "float" days would be perceived as "taking something away" from TFL (with a lack of consensus resulting in a default to the status quo), so many within the community (including me) would be reluctant to lock in such a precedent now.

Lastly, I don't see a compelling benefit. Yes, it's nice to highlight material when it's topical, but a fixed Monday/Friday schedule would ensure that any such list — irrespective of whether it appears before or after an event occurs — is no more (and often fewer) than three days removed from the relevant date. So even if the above issues are set aside, it's difficult to argue that the relative complexity of maintaining a floating day is justified. —David Levy 01:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with the rationale above [for not having a floating day], but do respect that there is not a strong enough appetite for it to justify pressing ahead any further. Ultimately a floating day could not be implemented without consensus, and if I can't convince the majority of people with a strong interest in TFL, I've no hope of convincing people who would be somewhat more skeptical about any expansion proposal.

I'm going to step aside from this debate until a proposal is finalized. There is an emerging consensus from within the FL community to press ahead with an RfC of sorts, and I do not want to interfere with its drafting. I do however ask that someone informs me when the RfC is about to be opened. As things stand I will almost certainly oppose the proposal, because I think those most closely connected to TFL have a blinkered view of what is currently going on, and lack a compelling vision on what exactly the second/third day would do to help lists on Wikipedia. Please do not take that as me being opposed to TFL progressing, because under the right circumstances I would like to see TFL expand. And given my reputation for being forthright, above all else please do not take my opposition personally.

We all agree that diversity is one factor in judging TFL's success, and overall interest in lists is another. The only difference between us is our perspective on whether those aims are being achieved at this point, and therefore our views on the best strategy going forwards. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 23:07, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

On what do you base the assertion that "those most closely connected to TFL have a blinkered view of what is currently going on, and lack a compelling vision on what exactly the second/third day would do to help lists on Wikipedia"? I certainly hope that it's something more than failure to agree with your idea. —David Levy 23:18, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I had intended to leave this phase of the debate after my last post, but will respond because you are specifically asking me to do so. Firstly I'd like to stress that I immediately prefaced your quote with "I think...". Secondly, the idea you refer to was the "floating day" idea, which I have now dropped because there is clearly not consensus for it even within TFL, let alone outside of it.

To directly answer your question, my analysis of TFL declining faster in the past year or so than the general dip in Main Page interest has simply been ignored with a casual "stats aren't everything". While that is true, to say that everything is going well, any loss should be outweighed by a greater benefit. No-one has convincingly explained why we should not be concerned about the sharp fall in hit count. The assertion that TFL is more diverse now than ever before is being made out to be a fact. I disagree with that assertion, but even if for the sake of argument we assume it to be correct, that doesn't explain why obscure lists in 2013 seem to be getting so much less attention than similarly obscure lists from 2011 and 2012.

I hope that better explains my previous comment. I'm happy to debate this further on user talk if you would like, and that goes for anyone and everyone. To be clear I'm not walking away from this process, but given that there is a consensus to draft an RfC, and given how opposed I am to launching the RfC at this point, I believe that sticking around on this page would slow down the drafting process. I do not want to do that. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 23:43, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that does better explain your previous comment, for which I thank you.

I'm active in maintaining the main page and was involved in the TFL section's design and introduction, but I'm not a regular participant in the featured list process. So I'm in no position to comment on (let along debate) the issues that you've described. I inquired because I wanted to confirm that your opinion stemmed from matters beyond the lack of consensus for the floating day idea (which has become readily apparent). —David Levy 02:27, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

WFC, Your thoughts have not been "ignored" and the observation about the weight that should be given to stats was not "casual". I apprecite you have a viewpoint on this, but please could we try and keep the language neutral. I also do not think that saying those most closely connected to the TFL process are somehow "blinkered" is either correct or at all helpful. (Yes, I am also forthright, so please do not take my comments personally). - SchroCat (talk) 08:47, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to help craft a proposal

Surveillance awareness day is a proposal for the English Wikipedia to take special steps to promote awareness of global surveillance on February 11, 2014. That date is chosen to coincide with similar actions being taken by organizations such as Mozilla, Reddit, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Feedback from members of this Wikiproject would be greatly appreciated. Please come join us as we brainstorm, polish, and present this proposal to the Wikipedia Community. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:10, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

And, fingers crossed, reject. - SchroCat (talk) 19:13, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Working draft: RfC wording for Talk:Main Page

Should Today's featured list appear twice a week on the Main page, rather than just on Mondays?

Background

In June 2011 a unanimously supported proposal to add Today's featured list (TFL) to the Main Page every Monday was passed. Since 13 June 2013 a FL has appeared on the front page every Monday. Following a discussion on Wikipedia talk:Today's featured list#Expansion of TFL on the main page, it was agreed that there is sufficient interest to run the TFL at least twice a week.

The FL process is strong, healthy and can cope with a second slot on the front page. As of 3 December 2013 there are 2,533 featured lists; in the first 11 months of 2013, 209 lists were promoted (and 239 during 2012), and all naturally meet the current criteria demanded by the community. There are, therefore, a sufficient number of high-quality lists available from which to select.

Featured lists, like their article counterparts, cover a hugely wide-ranging set of topics. An extra day per week on the main page will allow the FL community to both increase the diversity of those lists featured and enable us to schedule time-specific lists on appropriate dates, or within a closer timeframe than we currently do.

Why additional day/s

Featured lists are a strong and healthy part of the project's output and they provide content whose standards are as exacting as other Featured output. In order to best showcase that output, it is considered appropriate to raise its profile by showcasing the finest lists we have on the main page.

• Display the diversity of the FL output
• Allow more flexibility for date-specific listings

Although there were calls during the discussion for lists to be run on three days, two days would enable a strong diversity to be maintained. A suggestion was also made for a "floating day", to be used intermittently on specific dates. Although the consensus was against this for a second day, it may be suitable as a potential third day, on an intermittant basis for key events.

Practicalities

There are currently over 2,500 featured lists, over 200 of which have been selected during 2013. These recently promoted articles will, by definition, meet the current criteria of featured status as defined by community consensus. Even through selection of just the articles passed this year, there is a sufficient number to be able to select two articles a week. There is also a sufficiently diverse pool of lists from which we are able to select the TFL, in order that we avoid appearing too Western-centric.

Technical points

Technical impact on the main page is nil. The current code for TFL was written with the anticipation that it could be expanded to more then one day in the future.

Summary

1. We seek a set second day for TFLs on the main page: Mondays and either Thursday or Friday.
2. A potential third list scheduled when there is date relevance, and when there is consensus to do so.

Featured lists have enriched the main page now for over a year without any serious issues. I hope the community would agree that allowing us to feature at least twice a week would enrich the project.

• I think I have summarised the general consensus of the discussion, and tried to take into account an aspect of the 'floating day' suggestion too. Please feel free to copy edit. - SchroCat (talk) 22:11, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking about sending this over to Talk:Main Page, but think it may be best waiting until the festivities are over and people are less likely to be distracted by family commitments, so I'll move it over in ten days' time or so. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 19:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

This RfC has now been moved over to Talk:Main Page#Expansion of TFL on the main page for comment. - SchroCat (talk) 08:49, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Friday page

Great news on the main talk page that the proposal has been accepted. Giants, in practical terms, are we ready to roll out a second TFL this Friday? - SchroCat (talk) 13:45, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

As long as Friday slots aren't showing up in the monthly logs, I say that we aren't quite ready. Assuming that adding Fridays to the mix is a simple fix for David Levy or another coder, I vote that we start next week. A list going up this Friday would come on less on 48 hours' notice, which is a little short. Can we get in contact with whomever does coding for Main Page projects so that we can get started on scheduling future Fridays? Giants2008 (Talk) 18:10, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I crafted the archive page and will look into it. I do need the date for the first friday though. — Edokter (talk) — 19:59, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Edokter! As per Giant's suggestion above, how about next Friday—31 January—as the inaugeral Friday list. We've got the go-ahead from the community, so I think we should go as soon as we can get the practicalities sorted (and this Friday probably is a little too short notice!) Many thanks - SchroCat (talk) 20:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Running into a small problem... the archives are "month-controlled". This means I can only start a new archive contaning fridays per month. To prevent making the templates unnecessarily complicated for the sake of showing only one day (the 31st), would it be OK if the first friday is February 7? This would also give the directors more time to fill in the first fridays. — Edokter (talk) — 20:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

If that's what the templates push us towards, then I'm OK with that. Giants, you happy with 7 February too? - SchroCat (talk) 21:34, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

That works fine for me. I put the TFL already scheduled for February 3 on my talk page so it can easily be re-added after the current February archive is wiped (I assume that will be required). Giants2008 (Talk) 01:20, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Nothing needs wiping. I'll make the new archive page live so you can start adding pages for february. — Edokter (talk) — 16:57, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Page is live, with a caveat: if you find dates are swapped (april and may), add |swap=1 to the call to {{TFL archive}}. This is a bit harder then I thought. The logic should probably be rewritten in lua, which requires someone more adept in lua. But for now it works. — Edokter (talk) — 17:41, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Note to self: Also prepare Wikipedia:Today's featured list (needs a bit more logic). — Edokter (talk) — 17:01, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

All done! Also, there is no more need for swap=1 or even missing=1 thanks to some pointers regarding the #time: parser function. — Edokter (talk) — 14:45, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Today's featured list/requests"

Shouldn't the page Wikipedia:Today's featured list/requests be redirected to Wikipedia:Today's featured list/submissions, and redirect the shortcuts WP:TFLR and WP:TFL/R to that page? Opinions? © Tbhotch^™ (en-2.5). 01:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

List of High Courts of India was not a good choice for TFL today

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and all that, but does anyone else think that something has gone wrong with the selection of this list for the main page? It's a 2005 FL with serious issues, not least the virtually total lack of references for anything that has happened since 2005 (not that the pre-2005 material is well-referenced to start with). I've done some tidy-up of some obvious problems - inconsistent dates, non-standard use of italics etc - but the content side of things is beyond me. Bencherlite^Talk 10:11, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

You're right. I should have looked at the list more closing before slotting it. This one is on me, and I'll definitely be looking more closely at TFL candidates in the future. Giants2008 (Talk) 17:09, 1 June 2014 (UTC)