Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests

Articles suggested here must already be featured articles that have not previously appeared on the Main Page. Articles do not have to be suggested to appear on the Main Page. Requests must be for dates within the next 30 days that have not yet been scheduled. There may be no more than five requests on this page at any time for a specific date, and two requests for nonspecific dates. If there are already five articles requested and if the article that you would like to request has a point value higher than the request with the lowest point value, you may replace it according to the instructions below. Today's featured articles are chosen by the featured article director, Raul654, or his delegate, Dabomb87. Requests are not the only factor in scheduling today's featured article (see Choosing Today's Featured Article); the final decision rests with Raul654. Please confine requests to this page, and remember that community endorsement on this page does not mean the article will appear on the requested date. See also User:Raul654/Featured article thoughts. It is helpful to put the request, with the estimated point score (see below), up for discussion on the talk page pending template up to 90 days before the requested date; requestors should return to move the request to this page during the 30-day timeframe if the article has enough points to replace another article. – Table of Contents – Dead links – Alt text

Featured content: Featured articles Featured lists Featured pictures Featured sounds Featured portals Featured topics Featured article tools: Featured article criteria Featured article candidates Featured article review Today's featured article This month's queue Main page requests Today's featured article statistics Most viewed today's featured articles Featured article log Featured article statistics Former featured articles Related pages: Good articles Good topics

Calculating points: Points are the sum of choices for each of the following six criteria: Age (since promotion to featured article) Promoted between one and two years ago: 1 point Promoted two or more years ago: 2 points Timing (relevance to main page date request, select one of the following options) Date relevant to article topic: 1 point Decennial or quinvigintennial anniversary (10-year or 25-year multiples): 2 points Semicentennial anniversary (50-year multiples): 4 points Centennial anniversary (100-year multiples): 6 points Importance (select one of the following three) Widely covered: 2 points Vital article: 4 points Core topic: 6 points Contributor history The requestor is a significant contributor to the article, and has not previously had an article appear as Today's featured article: 1 point Diversity Subject underrepresented at WP:FA: 1 point Main page representation A similar article has not been featured on the main page: Within three months of requested date: 1 point Within six months of requested date: 2 points Deduct points if a similar article was recently featured on the main page: Within two weeks of requested date: −3 points Within one month of requested date: −2 points Notes Adding requests: The article must not have been previously featured as Today's Featured Article. History shows that articles with five or more points are almost never replaced. Accordingly, you must wait until there are 20 days or fewer before nominating such an article, to avoid tying up a slot for a long period of time, and to allow other articles their chance. Please nominate only one article at a time. Nominations are ordered by requested date below the summary chart. The archive of previously featured articles is here. If there are already five requests, and the article you propose to add has more points than one of the articles already requested, you may remove a request and add yours (explaining in your post the claimed point total) according to the following: If a requested article has at least five declarations and over 50% oppose votes (counting the nominator's declaration as a support) at least 48 hours after the request is initiated, it may be removed regardless of its point value. If item 1 doesn't apply, then if there are two requests for the same date, the request within that date with the lowest number of points may be removed, regardless of how many points articles outside that date may have. Otherwise, replace the request that has the least points. If there is a tie, choose the one with the highest percentage of opposes. In case of a tie in oppose percentage, replace the one with the fewest support votes. If support is equal, remove the article with the latest date. If the tied articles are for the same date, remove any one of them, at your option. Suggested formatting: The request should have a blurb that uses the same formatting as the ones used on the main page; see . Specifically: format it as one paragraph only; omit reference tags, alternative names, and extraneous bolding; trim birth/death dates to year only; link to the article title in bold; and limit total length (including spaces and markup) to roughly 1200 characters or fewer. The blurb should be preceded by a lead image when available; fair use images are not allowed. Use the following markup style for the image: <div style="float:left;margin:0.5em 0.9em 0.4em 0;">[[File:Jrobinson.jpg|100px|Jackie Robinson]]</div> Nonspecific date article: Two articles may be nominated by the community for use by the Director on dates which he determines, rather than being nominated for specific dates. The proposed TFAs may be replaced by articles which have higher numbers of points, according to the following rules: Points will be calculated per the usual (above) system, without including the points for "Timing". The article's targeted dates are the first seven days without scheduled articles after its nomination. Points based on similarity and main page representation are calculated as if the article's target is the first unscheduled day. If the article is not selected as a TFA by the seventh unscheduled day, it will be deemed rejected and may be replaced by any eligible article, regardless of points. It may also be removed for having a majority (by at least five) of oppose votes 48 hours after nomination. Community members may support or oppose, as they do for other nominations.

Summary chart

Currently accepting requests from February 16 to March 17 (only up to March 7 if the entry would have five or more points). The chart will be updated regularly by editors who follow this page:

Potential upcoming requests Feb 16, 2012 – May 16, 2012 view • • history • watch
Date	Article	Points
Mar 10	Baker Street and Waterloo Railway	5
Mar 15	Liverpool F.C.	6
Mar 16	Conan the Barbarian (1982 film)	>5
Mar 17	Ernest Shackleton	>2
April 6	Robin Friday	1

Date	Article	Points	Notes	Supports†	Opposes†
Nonspecific 1	Tom Driberg	0	Interesting life story of a shadowy politician/spy/sex addict who got close to the centre of things
Nonspecific 2
Feb 23	W. E. B. Du Bois	4	Date relevance (birthday), nom's first TFA, widely covered	14	0
Feb 24	Malmö FF	2		5	0
Mar 1	Warren County, Indiana	5	Promoted >1 year ago, date relevant (founding date), requestor is main contributor with no previous TFA, no similar for 6 months	5	0
Mar 2	Murder of Julia Martha Thomas	3	Date relevance (anniversary of event), no similar for 6 months	7	0
Mar 4	Rutherford B. Hayes	4	Date relevance -- when he became president; widely covered	4	0

^† Tally may not be up to date; please do not use these tallies for removing a nomination according to criteria 1 or 3 above unless you have verified the numbers. The nominator is included in the number of supporters.

Nonspecific date 1

No current nomination

Nonspecific date 2

No current nomination

Date requests (5 max)

February 23

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) was an American civil rights activist, author, and editor. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois, one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Racism was the main target of Du Bois's polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize efforts to free African colonies from European powers. Du Bois wrote several seminal essays and treatises, and published many influential pieces in his role as editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis. He was an ardent peace activist and advocated for nuclear disarmament. The United States' Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted one year after his death. (more…)

• Date relevant to article topic: Du Bois's birthday is February 23rd.
• The requestor is a significant contributor to the article, and has not previously had an article appear as Today's featured article:

Submitted by --Noleander (talk) 04:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• I make this 4 points – 1 for nom's first TFA, 1 for date relevance and 2 for being widely covered (apart from English, covered in 26 languages). —Cliftonian (talk) 13:56, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support – really excellent article, very well-written and well-referenced. Also timely as the date of his birth. Note that I have trimmed the blurb down a little as it was a bit long. —Cliftonian (talk) 04:37, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for trimming it ... my character counter was broken :-) --Noleander (talk) 04:45, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem. —Cliftonian (talk) 05:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support as doubly relevant since February is Black History Month in the U.S. Daniel Case (talk) 05:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support. It is quite relevant in February, as per the comment above, and would be a quite an interesting topic that could draw in readers. DCItalk 03:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Good suggestion, and obviously relevant. Prioryman (talk) 22:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support either on February 23 (Du Bois' birthday) or February 12 (in which February 12, 1909 was the founding of the NAACP). I would have most certainly supported this at FAC (which I unfortunately missed that opportunity). Du Bois is one of the most important figures in African American history. --MuZemike 02:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support good core encyclopedic article and good date. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support, great article, good date. --Coemgenus (talk) 16:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: Du Bois is an important figure in African American history and literature and in the history of Sociology. Great article for Black History Month, so would support for any February date. Meclee (talk) 19:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Suppport Great for Black History Month.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:19, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support per above. Melicans (talk, contributions) 08:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support Relevant and a stand out name in the civil rights movement. – Lemonade51 (talk) 15:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Support: Highly appropriate subject featured in a comprehensive and extraordinarily well-done fashion. It is an honor to support this article for TFA. Jonyungk (talk) 01:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support The timing for its featuring and the quality being presented in the article. Wifione ^Message 18:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

February 24

Malmö FF are a Swedish professional football club based in Malmö. The club play their home matches at Swedbank Stadion. Formed on 24 February 1910, the club have won sixteen national championship titles and fourteen national cup titles, making them the most successful club in Sweden in terms of total trophies won. Malmö FF have also won the top tier league, Allsvenskan, on three occasions when the title of Swedish champions was not decided by the outcome of that league. They were the runners-up in the 1978–79 European Cup final, which they lost 1–0 to English club Nottingham Forest. This feat makes them the only Scandinavian club to have made it to the final of the most prestigious club competition in European football, presently named the UEFA Champions League. The club are currently playing in Allsvenskan, where the season lasts from April to October in contrast to a majority of other European national football leagues where the season lasts from August to May the following year. The club first won Allsvenskan in 1944 and most recently for the club's centennial anniversary in 2010. Malmö FF were most successful during the 1970s, when they won five Swedish championships and four Svenska Cupen titles. (more...)

4 points – Date of the club's founding, first TFA nomination from main contributor and a widely covered topic. Note that I have used British style grammar to stay consistent to the grammar style used in the article. --Reckless182 (talk) 00:28, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

2 points; loses 2 to Germany women's national football team (TFA Feb 1st). Bencherlite^Talk 23:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support - thumbs up for countering systemic bias :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support – countering systemic bias and a good read to boot. —Cliftonian (talk) 00:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support... good to have a Swedish club instead of another Premiership side (although it wouldn't be the first; we had IFK Göteborg over six years ago). Daniel Case (talk) 05:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
• Jag stöder (support). Nice to have some European football teams on TFA for a change; the list of football FAs is awfully UK-centric, perhaps inevitably. Maybe we could look at running FC Barcelona on November 29th to tie in with the anniversary of that club's establishment? Prioryman (talk) 22:35, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
• Comment Another soccer team is TFA Feb 1. --Ettrig (talk) 15:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry but no such article was nominated at TFAR or prepared at This month's queue when I nominated Malmö FF for TFA. --Reckless182 (talk) 16:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
    • I think the Feb 1st one was added by Raul654 on his own initiative. That's unfortunate - he evidently didn't realise that it could clash with a pending TFAR nomination. It's not your fault. Prioryman (talk) 21:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

March 1

Warren County, Indiana, is located in the western part of the U.S. state of Indiana, between the Illinois border and the Wabash River. Before the arrival of non-indigenous settlers in the early 1800s, the area was inhabited by several Native American tribes, especially the Miami, Kickapoo and Potawatomi. The county was officially established on March 1, 1827. It covers an area of 366 square miles (950 km²) with a population of about 8,500 people and is one of the most rural counties in the state. It has some of the state’s most productive farmland, with a 2009 corn harvest of over 17 million bushels. To the north and west, the land consists largely of open prairie, whereas the land along the river in the south and east is more hilly and wooded. The state's highest waterfall is located in the county seat of Williamsport. (more...)

5 points -- promoted between 1 and 2 years ago (1 point); county was founded on March 1, 1827 (1 point); requestor is main contributor with no previous TFA (1 point); no similar articles have been featured in the past 6 months (2 points). The choice for the photo came down to the waterfall (a unique county feature), the county courthouse, and an atlas map; all three are in the article and are in the public domain. Omnedon (talk) 14:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support – Very good, plus I gather this is the first US county article to reach featured status. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 17:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. For same as reason above. The counties project is long inactive, and the subjects are more or less the forgotten middle children of many better articles on cities and states. Articles on counties are too often dumping grounds for poorly cohering indiscriminate collections of information; having one on the Main Page might help inspire others to improve a county article or two. Daniel Case (talk) 06:32, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Yes, why not. If it's the first US county article to reach featured status, as Huwmanbeing suggests above, that's a pretty good achievement in itself. Prioryman (talk) 22:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support something a bit (stress "bit") different. Should the blurb not mention the March 1 date? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:14, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• Very good point, I've taken the liberty of adding the date to the blurb. Prioryman (talk) 23:19, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

March 2

The murder of Julia Martha Thomas was one of the most notorious crimes in Britain in the late 19th century. Thomas, a widow who lived in Richmond in west London, was killed on 2 March 1879 by Kate Webster, her Irish maid (pictured). Webster dismembered the body, boiled the flesh off the bones, and threw most of it into the River Thames, allegedly offering the fat to neighbours as dripping and lard. Part of Thomas's remains were subsequently recovered but her severed head was only found in October 2010 during building works being carried out for the naturalist Sir David Attenborough. After the murder, Webster posed as Thomas for two weeks but was exposed and fled to her family home at Killanne, Ireland. She was arrested on 29 March and stood trial in London at the Old Bailey in July 1879, where she was convicted and sentenced to death. She confessed to the murder the night before she was hanged on 29 July at Wandsworth Prison. The case attracted considerable interest from the public and press in Great Britain and Ireland. (more...)

3 points - date relevance and no similar articles (i.e. crime articles) featured in the six months prior to March 2. Blurb length is 1,203 characters including markup. Prioryman (talk) 13:43, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support I still think David Attenborough did it though. Johnbod (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support -- interesting article! --Coemgenus (talk) 19:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
• Does anyone else feel like "the case attracted huge interest" is too informal/colloquial? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes. The article text says: "The murder had a considerable social impact on Victorian Britain. It caused an immediate sensation and was widely reported in the press." --Ettrig (talk) 14:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't mind changing the wording, but could you suggest an alternative form of words? Prioryman (talk) 15:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Changed to "a large amount of". Sven Manguard Wha? 20:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
        • I feel that's a bit clunky, to be honest. I've changed it again to "much", which hopefully will suffice unless anyone has any objections? Prioryman (talk) 23:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support Very nice article and a really interesting read. I would think it's going to get a significant amount of pageviews beyond the norm when it goes up. Silverseren^C 23:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Howabout "widespread interest", "immense interest" or "extensive interest"? Support, by the way. When this is on the front page, I'm sure it will attract huge interest. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 00:27, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support interesting case, as was the public reaction. Rich Farmbrough, 02:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC).
  
• Support I noticed this some time ago during FAC. Definitely a date appropriate mainpage features article. ww2censor (talk) 23:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

March 4

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) was the 19th President of the United States (1877–1881). Taking office as president on March 4, 1877, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution. Hayes was a reformer who began the efforts that would lead to civil service reform and attempted, unsuccessfully, to reconcile the divisions that had led to the American Civil War fifteen years earlier. When the Civil War began, Hayes left a successful political career to join the Union Army. Wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain, he earned a reputation for bravery in combat and was promoted to the rank of major general. After the war, he served in the U.S. Congress from 1865 to 1867 as a Republican. Hayes left Congress to run for Governor of Ohio and was elected to three terms, serving from 1867 to 1871 and 1876 to 1877. In 1876, Hayes was elected president in one of the most contentious elections in American history. Losing the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, Hayes narrowly won the presidency after the Compromise of 1877, in which a Congressional commission awarded him twenty disputed electoral votes. (more…)

4 points It will have been promoted more than a year ago by March (1 pt), is widely covered with 80 articles on other-language Wikipedias (2 pts), and the date is relevant, though not a significant anniversary -- 135 years (1 pt). As to the date, March 2 is the date the election controversy was resolved, March 3 he took the oath of office privately at the White House, March 4 his term began but, as it was a Sunday, the inauguration ceremony was held on March 5, when he took the oath again. --Coemgenus (talk) 16:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Coemgenus was kind enough to withdraw this nomination back in November so I could get Governor of Kentucky as TFA on November 8. The least I can do is return the favor by supporting here. Plus, I find it remarkable that anyone can sort through the mountain of sources about any U.S. president and get the related article to FA standards. Kudos! Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 16:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Love seeing that kind of collaboration, but please specify a date for the heading-- there's a March 2 TFAR right above this one. You could indicate alternate dates here, but you should pick one for the request heading. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Sandy: I settled on the 4th, when he actually took office, but I'd be glad to shift it if there's a good reason to. --Coemgenus (talk) 17:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support for 4th March, for entirely non-selfish reasons. ;-) Seriously though, the date of his taking office sounds like the best option. Can we work that date into the blurb to highlight its relevance? I suggest amending the blurb's second sentence as follows: "Taking office as president on March 4, 1877, he oversaw ..." Prioryman (talk) 19:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Done. Thanks for the support! --Coemgenus (talk) 19:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support; a very nice article. Melicans (talk, contributions) 23:20, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment There's too many American or British articles that get promoted as TFA. Already for February we have 8 out of 14 by my count. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 11:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I count 3 American, 2 English, 2 German, 1 Canadian, 1 Indian, and 1 French in that span. Also a video game, a moon, a hurricane, and a bird, none of which really have nationality. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)