Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates

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For a list of foreign-language reviewers see FAC foreign language reviewers.

FAC mentoring: first-time nominators

A voluntary mentoring scheme, designed to help first-time FAC nominators through the process and to improve their chances of a successful outcome, is now in action. Click here for further details. Experienced FAC editors, with five or more "stars" behind them, are invited to consider adding their names to the list of possible mentors, also found in the link. Brianboulton (talk) 10:17, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

FAC source reviews

For advice on conducting source reviews, see Wikipedia:Guidance on source reviewing at FAC.

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Koh Tao murders/archive1

Getting a bit concerned about the tone of some of the recent contributions to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Koh Tao murders/archive1. Irrespective of the merits or demerits of ProcrastinatingReader's article writing, JusticeForDavidMiller/RoyalThaiPolice [they seem to be the same person] comments are exceedingly rude. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:55, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I've removed the entire last set of comments, something I've never felt the need to do in all my time here. SPAs, on their way to getting blocked entirely I should think. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:01, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Such an odd case—there doesn't seem to be similar activity on the article itself, or its talk page, which would surely have felt like the first port of call for a new user. Would semi-protecting the review page to avoid new socks repeating this behaviour be a step too far? 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ X 11:21, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

The accounts have been blocked. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:41, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I've boldly moved the hatted SPA commentary to Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Koh Tao murders/archive1 as the primary purpose of that material was to disrupt, not contribute to the discussion in a reasonable manner. If anyone objects to that movement, feel free to revert me. Hog Farm _Talk 02:39, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Seeking mentor for Simonie Michael

I have written a few hundred biographies and gotten some GAs under my belt, but I've never done an FA, and I'm considering my first FA nomination with the article Simonie Michael. The Inuit who live in the northernmost parts of the Americas were only granted the right to vote in Canadian elections in 1950, and the government didn't effectively provide ballot boxes for another decade after that. Just a few years later Simonie Michael became the first Inuk elected to a Canadian legislature (he served one term in the territorial legislature for the incredibly immense expanse that became the Northwest Territories and Nunavut). Michael was one of the only people in Iqaluit in the early 20th century who could speak both Inuktitut and English fluently, but his first act serving in a legislature full of English speakers was to speak in Inuktitut for 90 minutes. The other legislators responded by immediately banning Inuktitut from the legislative assembly. At that time most Inuit had only one name, so the government assigned every Inuk a numerical identifier for purposes like mail delivery; Michael saw this as dehumanizing, and was one of the leaders of a movement to ask every Inuk to provide a last name. He was a professional builder, and he led legislative initiatives to reduce massive overcrowding and guard against flooding in the region's housing, build up local health care, and reduce the availability of liquor. He also brought attention to the little-known but extremely prevalent de jure segregation in Canada's north at that time, including establishments that explicitly banned Inuit and would only serve white people. In my many years of writing pages about people who I was really surprised to learn did not have a page yet, from the first prime minister of Madagascar to a super-famous podcaster, this was one of the most eye-popping gaps I've encountered. Since creating the article a few years ago I've also brought it through DYK and GA. The article is short and to the point, I think the story is very interesting, and it should hopefully be an easy lift to review it and give me some pointers. Thanks very much for anyone who can help. :) - Astrophobe (talk) 17:59, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not able to mentor this article, but I did leave a suggestion on the talk page. (t · c) buidhe 18:35, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
• I'm not doing mentorships right now due to RL commitments but if you notify on my talk when it comes to FAC, I'll do a review.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
• @Astrophobe: If you open a WP:PR, ping me and I will try my best to comment there. Z1720 (talk) 00:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Looking for additional reviewers for Grey's Anatomy (season 17)

Hi all, I'm the nominator of the current FAC at Grey's Anatomy (season 17). It's at risk of being archived from lack of additional reviews/support comments. If anyone has any free time and is willing to give it a review I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks, TheDoctorWho (talk) 03:35, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/El Tatio/archive1 seems to be in the same boat, lack-of-review-wise. I'll see if I can review that Grey's Anatomy article. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:17, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Image and source reviewers wanted

It is possible that you have already noticed that the list of requests for image and source reviewers (and first-timer's spot checks) at the head of this page has become impressively long. Can I suggest that now may be a good time for anyone who has never done a source review, especially if they have ever received a source review for one of their nominations, to dip their toe in the water. Source reviews are usually fairly straight forward, subject knowledge is not required and the helpful guidance here covers most of what you will need to know. If you do find yourself in difficulty, there are plenty of experienced reviewers, shout for one of them or leave a message here. Anything editors can do towards cutting the list down would be appreciated.

Obviously, source or image reviews, or spot checks, by more experienced reviewers would also be most welcome. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:24, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Currently sitting tethering to mobile data to check a few things and it's slow, but if you can ping me in this conversation so I see it in my notices I'll try to pick something up tomorrow when I'm stealing borrowing some company time at the office; I'm happier doing spotchecks than reviewing citation formatting though. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 20:29, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Grapple X, spotchecks are good - there are requests for five in the list above. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I've taken care of most of the requests. However, take note that I generally don't check for subscription or not and that in many cases I don't have a clue on whether something is reliable or not. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:23, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I was just noticing that I'd been pipped to the post on the first few I opened to check; good work. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 11:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Grapple X I just added a new request if you're still keen! The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 11:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

It contravenes my strict "Wenger out" policy but I'll have a duke. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 11:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Reasons to be cheerful ...

1. The number of featured articles went past 6,000 for the first time yesterday.
2. There were 36 promotions last month. Bar August (37), one has to go back to 2013 to find a higher monthly total.
3. The aggregate number of promotions over the past three months was 104. Again one has to go back to 2013 to find a higher total.

Gog the Mild (talk) 09:56, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Nomination supply exceeding (at times) demand from reviewers for stuff to read and critique does have benefits! Those are great stats, and thanks for sharing them. Nick-D (talk) 10:21, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

104 promotions takes a lot of reviewing. I think that it is a huge credit to all of the reviewers involved that such a volume of articles have been reviewed in the detail required for FAC promotions. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for September 2021

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for September 2021. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The facstats tool has been updated with this data. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:21, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Reviewers for September 2021

# reviews Type of review Reviewer Content Source Image Accessibility Nikkimaria 13 23 Z1720 15 3 Buidhe 1 13 Casliber 13 The Rambling Man 10 2 Chidgk1 9 Tim riley 8 Aoba47 6 2 Hog Farm 4 3 1 Aza24 5 1 Lee Vilenski 6 Edwininlondon 4 1 Moisejp 1 1 3 Jo-Jo Eumerus 1 3 1 Wehwalt 4 Graham Beards 4 Sdkb 3 1 DMT Biscuit 2 2 Girth Summit 3 Dudley Miles 3 SNUGGUMS 2 1 FunkMonk 3 Mike Christie 2 1 ChrisTheDude 3 Indopug 3 Kosack 3 Gog the Mild 3 Amakuru 3 Usernameunique 3 Grapple X 2 Iazyges 2 Ajpolino 1 1 Neopeius 2 Pamzeis 2 Hurricane Noah 1 1 Harrias 2 Kusma 2 Gerda Arendt 2 ProcrastinatingReader 2 A. Parrot 1 1 Hawkeye7 2 Epicgenius 2 Urve 1 1 SusunW 1 1 Display name 99 2 Pendright 2 Ceoil 2 Spicy 1 1 Jimfbleak 2 Mr rnddude 1 Super Dromaeosaurus 1 Extraordinary Writ 1 Ergo Sum 1 Giants2008 1 Link20XX 1 Teratix 1 TheSandDoctor 1 Modussiccandi 1 FormalDude 1 Taweektham 1 Twofingered Typist 1 Geraldo Waldo Luis 1 Yann 1 Noswall59 1 Balon Greyjoy 1 Oldelpaso 1 Editorofthewiki 1 Sandbh 1 Premeditated Chaos 1 Buffs 1 Ippantekina 1 Heartfox 1 Hurricanehink 1 GhostRiver 1 John M Wolfson 1 SchroCat 1 Dr Bowser 1 Jens Lallensack 1 Randy Kryn 1 Eviolite 1 Nick-D 1 Eddie891 1 Humanxanthro 1 TheDoctorWho 1 Panini! 1 JusticeForDavidMiller 1 ~riley 1 FeydHuxtable 1 Pseud14 1 Dracophyllum 1 Horsesizedduck 1 Peacemaker67 1 CPA-5 1 Alexandra IDV 1 SandyGeorgia 1 ZKang123 1 ImaginesTigers 1 TarkusAB 1 Kavyansh.Singh 1 100cellsman 1 Alexis Jazz 1 Femkemilene 1 Damian Vo 1 Vaticidalprophet 1 Totals 204 47 46 0

Supports and opposes for September 2021

# declarations Declaration Editor Support Oppose converted to support Struck oppose Struck support Oppose None Total Nikkimaria 36 36 Z1720 14 4 18 Buidhe 14 14 Casliber 12 1 13 The Rambling Man 10 2 12 Chidgk1 2 7 9 Aoba47 6 2 8 Tim riley 7 1 8 Hog Farm 4 4 8 Lee Vilenski 6 6 Aza24 4 2 6 Edwininlondon 4 1 5 Jo-Jo Eumerus 5 5 Moisejp 1 4 5 Wehwalt 4 4 DMT Biscuit 2 2 4 Sdkb 1 3 4 Graham Beards 3 1 4 Mike Christie 2 1 3 Girth Summit 3 3 Kosack 3 3 Gog the Mild 1 1 1 3 Usernameunique 3 3 FunkMonk 3 3 SNUGGUMS 2 1 3 Dudley Miles 3 3 Amakuru 3 3 ChrisTheDude 3 3 Indopug 1 2 3 Ajpolino 2 2 SusunW 1 1 2 Gerda Arendt 2 2 Grapple X 2 2 Iazyges 2 2 Urve 1 1 2 Jimfbleak 2 2 Hawkeye7 2 2 Epicgenius 2 2 Kusma 1 1 2 Spicy 2 2 Harrias 1 1 2 A. Parrot 1 1 2 Pamzeis 1 1 2 Hurricane Noah 1 1 2 ProcrastinatingReader 2 2 Neopeius 2 2 Ceoil 1 1 2 Pendright 2 2 Display name 99 1 1 2 Buffs 1 1 Premeditated Chaos 1 1 Mr rnddude 1 1 ~riley 1 1 FeydHuxtable 1 1 Editorofthewiki 1 1 Sandbh 1 1 Oldelpaso 1 1 Balon Greyjoy 1 1 Vaticidalprophet 1 1 Noswall59 1 1 Yann 1 1 Damian Vo 1 1 Panini! 1 1 JusticeForDavidMiller 1 1 TheDoctorWho 1 1 Twofingered Typist 1 1 Geraldo Waldo Luis 1 1 Taweektham 1 1 100cellsman 1 1 Alexis Jazz 1 1 Femkemilene 1 1 Humanxanthro 1 1 FormalDude 1 1 TarkusAB 1 1 Kavyansh.Singh 1 1 Eddie891 1 1 Nick-D 1 1 ImaginesTigers 1 1 ZKang123 1 1 Randy Kryn 1 1 Eviolite 1 1 Jens Lallensack 1 1 Modussiccandi 1 1 TheSandDoctor 1 1 CPA-5 1 1 Alexandra IDV 1 1 SandyGeorgia 1 1 John M Wolfson 1 1 SchroCat 1 1 Dr Bowser 1 1 Teratix 1 1 Peacemaker67 1 1 GhostRiver 1 1 Giants2008 1 1 Link20XX 1 1 Horsesizedduck 1 1 Heartfox 1 1 Hurricanehink 1 1 Ippantekina 1 1 Extraordinary Writ 1 1 Ergo Sum 1 1 Super Dromaeosaurus 1 1 Dracophyllum 1 1 Pseud14 1 1 Totals 155 0 1 0 7 134 297

I've just corrected an error pointed out to me by Moisejp; I had misattributed an image review to the nominator instead of the reviewer. I've run a query to find if I've made that mistake on other FACs, and there are almost 90 errors like that. Nearly all of them are in FACs ten or fifteen years old. I've fixed the only one from the last five years and will go through and change the rest as I find time. This will only affect reviewer stats. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:18, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

These are all now fixed. Only a handful of reviewers who are still active will have seen their reviewing numbers change, and only by 1 or 2 reviews at most. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:40, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Restoring older Featured articles to standard: 3Q2021 summary of URFA/2020 activity

Introduction

WP:URFA/2020 is a systematic approach to reviewing older featured articles (FAs). It was launched at the end of November 2020. The goals are to:

• Identify deteriorated older FAs to submit to Featured article review (FAR)
• Encourage tune-ups on mostly compliant FAs that don't need a FAR
• Listing older FAs that are ready to be today's featured article (TFA) and helping the TFA Coords check older FAs before run on TFA

This is the third quarterly update on the project. Previous reports are listed below:

• 2021 Q1 report
• 2021 Q2 report

Progress

Further information: Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles/2020 § Monthly stats

Since URFA/2020's launch, 145 FAs have been Delisted, and 114 deemed Satisfactory or declared "Kept" at FAR, which the percentage of FAs needing review reduced from 73% to 71%. Work has continued to focus on articles reviewed or promoted in 2004-2009: 136 articles have been delisted during this time while 9 have been delisted from 2010-2015, and 84 have been kept from 2004-2009 while 30 have been kept from 2010-2015. Around 17 users edited WP:URFA/2020 at least once in this quarter and more reviewed articles at FAR.

The project continued to reach out to active editors listed at WP:WBFAN to check the FAs they nominated. The project encourages experienced FA writers to check articles already marked as "Satisfactory" by a reviewer; the first reviewer is often the original nominator or interested in the topic, and they might answer questions or concerns if pinged on the talk page.

As of the end of this quarter, we have 135 articles listed at Wikipedia:Featured article review/notices given, a decrease of 17 listings from the Q2 report. This is a result of older notices being rechecked and listed at FAR. The project needs experienced FA editors to review older notices and determine if the article should be submitted to FAR or marked as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020.

If we continued this quarter's trend, it would take over 29 years to check every featured article, which is why we need your help!

How to help

• Review "your" articles: Did you nominate an article to FAC from 2004–2015? Check these articles, fix them up, and mark them as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020. If they do not meet the FA standards anymore, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page, and mark the article as "noticed".
• Fix an article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, Wikiprojects listed on the talk page, and editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020.
• Edit and review articles at FAR: FARC/FAR is a collaborative process. We encourage all editors to WP:BEBOLD and fix the concerns posted at FAR. We also need reviewers to list concerns so editors know what to fix. The sooner concerns are addressed, the quicker articles can be declared "Kept" and the nominator can list a new article.
• Review articles at URFA/2020: Experienced FA writers and reviewers are encouraged to help by marking articles as "Satisfactory" or posting notices for FAR. Inexperienced reviewers are also needed; articles far from meeting the FA criteria can be noticed and eventually posted at FAR. This allows experienced editors to focus on articles not egregiously failing the FA criteria and allows more articles to be nominated at FAR.
• Organise "review-a-thons" with editors and Wikiprojects: Are there editors in your Wikiproject that can help? Organise a contest with your Wikiproject to review and improve your project's FAs. The contest can even hand out barnstars and awards! Please post at WT:URFA/2020 if interested in hosting an event.

Feedback

If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020#Discussion 3Q2021. Z1720 (talk) 20:21, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Probably a dumb question (I'm full of those), but I keep any articles I've taken through FA on my watchlist and look over them diligently enough, is that enough to considered them "satisfactory" as they aren't drifting far from the version that passed (over the years things like markup changes or templating updates will creep in but I'd say most of them are still 90%+ the same revision as at the time of promotion) or does it need an uninvolved editor to mark it off? 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 19:30, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

@Grapple X: - Three editors will look at the article before moving it off the table, and you are encouraged to check your own. Hog Farm _Talk 19:37, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Featured article durations by month

I posted a version of this back in March, but have just added an option to the facstats tool to list durations by month for both promoted and archived FACs, so others can query the raw data if interested. Here's the result.

The archive duration has clearly been getting shorter for at least a year, which is interesting. (The spikes (both up and down) appear to be due to very small sample sizes at those points.) The duration of promoted FACS might be shrinking too but that trend is more recent; perhaps it will continue to drop if the FAC volume stays high. Personally I don't think we need to leave FACs open for a month if they've had plenty of comments from diverse editors; the problem with duration has always been a balance between leaving FACs open to try to get more comments, and closing them to reduce the length of the page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:34, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I am interested in a graph showing the page size of the FAC nomination page for promoted articles. I suspect that the current backlog is caused by an increase in nominations, while in previous years it was caused by an increase in the number of comments given by each reviewer. However, I have no data to support this hypothesis. Z1720 (talk) 14:55, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I produced a graph like this a couple of years ago: see this archived discussion. I've stopped tracking it because the script I was using for page size started giving me inconsistent results. E.g. this archive was coming up as prose size of 1.799Mb a couple of years ago; now the prose size is just 49 bytes. If you know of a reliable tool I can use to get page sizes, I can start tracking it again. Also be aware that I wasn't tracking it FAC by FAC, only month by month -- it's too time consuming to do it for each FAC. I think this is good enough for our purposes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Longer duration for articles that end up getting promoted is not all bad. It may mean that articles are getting more scrutiny than they did in the past (certainly that is the case compared to 2006 FACs!) (t · c) buidhe 15:14, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Buidhe. Some of the short older FACs don't instill much confidence, such as Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Flag of Armenia (2007 promotion, delisted last month). Hog Farm _Talk 15:17, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I think the important factors are improved standards, and more reviews against those standards. (Maybe more experienced reviewers too, but that's harder to measure.) An article that's had five content reviews in 14 days has been scrutinized more thoroughly than one with three content reviews in twice that time. I guess what I'm suggesting is that duration by itself is a poor way to judge when to archive or promote (not that I think the coords are doing that) and that if the increased activity recently means more reviews happen more quickly, that is going to lead to shorter durations. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Basiliscus

Hello all, Recently as part of WP:URFA I took a look at the Basiliscus article, as he was a Byzantine emperor and that's my general field. The article was pretty rough, with some text uncited for 14+ years (the bit about Marcus was uncited from at least its A-class nomination and during its FAC), general disorganization with muddled ref usage, and other problems. I have re-written it in my userspace and just introduced it to the article space. The article is, at present, entirely unrecognizable from the one that was passed as FA; it is nearly double the size in terms of bytes and words and at present 92.4% is my work per XTools. I don't think most URFA improvements have been so drastic, so I wanted to make a note here in case people believe it should be run through FAC again, or FAR, either of which I am willing to do. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:15, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

@Iazyges: Thank you for making those improvements! FAR has a lot of nominations at the moment, so if your improvements bring the article to FA standards then I don't think it needs a formal reassessment. Instead, mark it as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020 and other editors will review it, make suggestions, and informally ensure that it meets FA standards. Would you like me to take a look at it from a non-expert perspective and leave notes on the talk page? Z1720 (talk) 00:23, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

@Z1720: Yes, that would be great. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:24, 9 October 2021 (UTC)