Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates

Page too long and unwieldy? Try adding nominations viewer to your scripts page.

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

Image/source check requests

Main page: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates

Current requests

Requests should only be posted here for FAC nominations that have attracted several reviews and declarations of support. Premature requests can be removed by any editor.

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.

VGRS and HQRS

Been wondering if anyone has ever evaluated whether the sources cited at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources as "reliable" also pass muster under WP:WIAFA's "high-quality reliable sources" standard. Because I know little about video games and less so on sources on videogames I tend to rely heavily on that VGRS list but it'd be reassuring to know that there aren't any "reliable but not high quality" sources on it. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:33, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I have not analyzed whether the video game sources listed in the Video Game project are compatible with FA RS requirements. However, I have reviewed several video game articles, and – as with many pop-culture topics – high-quality academic sources are generally not available, so online gaming websites are often the only sources the nominator will cite. And it is not uncommon to cite the game's own primary-source documentation for some basic facts about the game. I believe the WP Video Game project's list at game RS list is decent guidance for an FA reviewer. If a source is not listed there, the reviewer could ask the nominator for a better source. Noleander (talk) 12:45, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

VGRS cites reliability, but it doesn't screen for high-quality. That said, I would say the less reliable the source, the more likely it's been marked as situational or has stipulations/notes attached. Potentially that's something the VG project could go through in terms of marking sources that have a wide buy-in on quality and have appeared in many recent FACs (more internet magazines, less blog coverage.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:22, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm a little hesitant to apply the "have appeared in many recent FACs" test, lest we fall into the circular reasoning trap: FAC allows them because VGRS says they're good, and VGRS says they're good because FAC has allowed them a lot. I'd rather see VGRS evaluate things like the level of editorial oversight and fact checking.

What I usually do with sources I'm unfamiliar with is to find their about page. As one more or less random example from VGRS, I see an about page that starts with ... reaches 28 million unique users globally, generating more than 100 million page views each month. If the most important thing they have to tell me about themselves is how many page views they get, that's not giving me warm and fuzzy HQRS feelings. I'll also look at their top staff bios. If you see job titles like "Chief SEO officer", you know you're in a bad place. RoySmith (talk) 15:41, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Having appeared in previous FAC does not seem to pass in term of reliability for me. I've been through a few video game related FAC and FL and often find material that is either not backed up by the sources in question or the source itself is rarely questioned. See the List_of_JoJo's_Bizarre_Adventure_video_games/archive1 for example, where all other editors have given it a pass, I found several material either not backed up the sources appeared to be blogs. I'm a bit back and forth on what "situational" seems to mean by some of the sources listed, some are clear, when sites have been bought out and their material is no longer viable, others are more unclear. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:33, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

As a WP:VG user, some thoughts in comparing WP:VG/S with WP:RSN:

• WP:VG/S was not built to address the HQRS test. It focuses on WP:V and does not assess WP:WIAFA. The page itself is framed as a "rough guide" and not "definitive proof": inclusion should not be an automatic proxy for "high-quality".
• Reinforcing this point, several WP:VG/S entries carry different verdicts based on ownership era, such as Kotaku or Destructoid - by default any editor using these sources at WP:FAC level should be supported to consider reliability in context, but reinforces it's not a box-ticking exercise.
• As media commentary, WP:VG/S seems, at least in the past few years, less fraught with debates on academic, political or ideological perspective and tends to engage more with independence and relationship to industry, publisher interference, automation and content churn. Its insularity, as mentioned below, creates at times uncomfortable incentives or relationships to publishers.
• As stated above by @Noleander, games media and journalism often lack externality: they are fairly insular sectors to write in, which means the indicia for reliability and pedigree may be leaned on more heavily than other subject areas. Exercises such as an editor and writers have written widely for other WP:VG/S, therefore it's reliable or this games site has been mentioned widely in other WP:VG/S... is genuinely helpful, but can be circular.
• Situational sources should not be treated as a buy-in or buy-out of WP:FAC just as much as they aren't for WP:RS. The project standard is that used alone, they tend to be poor indicia for WP:GNG. Their scrutiny differs very unevenly and the caution applied to them can be superficial or serious: it requires more nuanced guidance than looking at an About page and that is what the section is trying to do. I would not feel confident about general rules or statements applied to how to use these sources.
• I note there are some areas where WP:VG/S has been updated where WP:RSP has not (i.e. Destructoid). It may assist to defer to project-specific guidance when an editor is assessing the standard.

Anyway, I think if WP:RSP is setting WP:VG/S as a topic-specific floor for presumed reliability, the exercise is just to clarify that editors seeking to apply WP:WIAFA should not assume WP:RS in WP:VG/S automatically confers high quality but refer to its project-specific guidance to help assess best use. VRXCES (talk) 22:42, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I haven't created/improved a video game article in a little while, seeing as I'm pretty busy now. But my understanding is that the video game sources page is intended for people who create an article about a video game (or any article that would belong under the video game wikiproject) and want to know which sources are reliable when it comes to determining notability. It also serves for people who review/nominate it for good article, as GAs are mostly about the article citing reliable sources while FAs also have to be cited to HQ sources. However, the page does state that VentureBeat is a reliable/HQ source if posted before April 2023. After that date, then its not considered to be HQ and may not contribute to WP:GNG. JuniperChill (talk) 23:03, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

How many FACs?

Is there a good way to get a list (or count) of how many FACs there have ever been? My first thought was to just look for subpages of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates but that matches lots of pages that aren't FACs. RoySmith (talk) 15:39, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

• @RoySmith: Maybe add the numbers at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log with the numbers at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations? Might take some counting but I think it could work. Z1720 (talk) 16:22, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm sure there's a quicker way, but by doing Intitle:"Featured article candidates" and intitle:"archiveX", with x being every number up to 10 (we've never had an 11th nomination), and I got about 12,900 by adding it all up. There are probably some incorrect titles that I didn't catch (e.g., there are some "Archive 2" instead of "Archive2", and while I caught those, I probably didn't catch others, like if there are "Featured articles candidates". 1brianm7 (talk) 20:31, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

When I get a bit more time I can run a query on the FAC database to tell you every article name that has ever been featured since August 2006, which will eliminate plain duplicates, but that won't be quite right for a couple of reasons. There are plenty that predate that though you can get a rough count from the archive/promotion pages. Also, some pages are subsequently deleted or renamed or redirected or merged, and there's no easy way to tell if two different pages, both listed as FA, are the same page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:38, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

The "archiveX" part of the lookup will result in undercounts - some older nominations did not have that in the nomination page title, for instance Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bath, Somerset. Hog Farm _Talk 00:27, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah it is an undercount. I'm sure this is probably an overcount, but 15,605 is every page with intitle:"Featured article candidates" and insource:/(UTC)/, which should account for every single FA nom that ever had a signature. 1brianm7 (talk) 19:32, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I went and just added up every number on the successful and unsuccessful logs, with some regex in Google Sheets, and got 15,786, 8774 successful and 7,012 unsuccessful, so somehow there are 200 FA noms that nobody ever signed. 1brianm7 (talk) 19:56, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks everybody. I remember when I took my first Big Data course, take-away lesson number one was no matter what you do to clean up the data, there's always going to be more garbage so you just need to deal with it :-) RoySmith (talk) 20:31, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Featured_log/October_2003_and_before is probably going to mess with a lot of counting techniques. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:39, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Date formatting

I often see complaints that dates in references are incorrectly formatted. This annoys me. We have {{use mdy dates}}, {{use dmy dates}} (and perhaps others) which do two things. First, they ensure that all dates, regardless of how they are formatted in the source, appear in a uniform format when displayed. This is all that really matters. Second, for those who care about how the wikisource looks, there are automated scripts which convert dates in references into the format specified by the "use xxx dates" template. Nobody should care what the dates look like in the wiki source. Manually converting date formats is just busywork. We should stop fussing about this in reviews and concentrate on things which affect how our articles are seen by our WP:READERs. RoySmith (talk) 10:27, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

If somebody reads an article and then finds it worth their time to complain about the formatting of the wikisource, it should be read as supporting promotion of the article :) Seriously, one of the defects of FAC is that demands of formal perfection (in whatever way) sometimes overshadow actually important things like correct use of the best sources. I think it is worth pushing back a little on that. —Kusma (talk) 11:40, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

For me, as someone who edits using source code (and not visual editor) anytime I use the automated tool for citations done by hovering over 'templates' on the top left, it always gives me the date format in the dd/mm/yyyy. I guess its cause I'm from England so I'm not sure if American editors would see their date format. So that leaves me how someone used the yyyy/mm/dd date for citations. I guess its to do with visual editor. But I do agree that the dates in citations don't need changing manually as that's a 'cosmetic change' (changing the source text without affecting its output to readers). It's like manually fixing double redirects that bots fix within a couple days. JuniperChill (talk) 12:12, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think date format consistency is important in itself even in the visible text. The point of MOS:ENGVAR as I see it is to avoid edit wars from one variety to another, and I think the same thing applies date formats. TompaDompa (talk) 12:04, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Agreed that, in general, anything that's invisible to readers is not worth bothering with at an FAC review. If it can't be handled by WP:SOFIXIT, it's probably not worth commenting on. I'm sure there are exceptions, but for the most part Roy's approach sounds sensible to me. Incidentally, it's news to me that {{Use DMY dates}} etc do anything more than provide a note to future editors, so I've learned something through this exchange! UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:42, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Yup, compare Special:Permalink/1368014265 to Special:Permalink/1368014238. I think it only works inside references. RoySmith (talk) 14:56, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Time for a new FAC process (?)

(Courtesy link to the last discussion I could find along these lines: Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive96#Make source reviews come first) Several years ago, SandyGeorgia and others suggested modifying the FAC process (see the proposal here to put source and image reviews first). The rationale was that concerns about things like reliability of sources, close paraphrasing, source to text integrity often derail a nomination after considerable amount of effort has been spent on providing prose reviews. The proposed solution: was basically to consider fundamental concerns before prose reviews. When this was brought up in 2021, the discussion seemed to stall over concerns that it was a "solution in search of a problem" (I wasn't really involved in the discussion, so please correct me if any of the above is inaccurate).

It's my opinion, however, that this is in fact a real problem, and I'm prepared to bring a several further examples to the table, if people feel it would be useful (I haven't come out to cite them because I don't want to unnecessarily "call out" or "shame" anyone. In light of that, I'll use myself as an example). Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Presidency of George Washington/archive1 - 2018 - my first FA nom languished for months, largely undergoing prose workshopping, until it was almost promoted. The last thing conducted was a source spotcheck, which revealed serious problems. Who knows how many editor hours this FAC sucked up that could have been spent elsewhere if we had done the source check first? Another concern I have is that when major structural changes are made late in the review process, it should be viewed as invalidating earlier supports, which were made in consideration of a largely different version of the article, so it functionally necessitates restarting the FAC process.

I think it would absolutely be worth considering a version of Sandy's proposal, where an article has to have a few things checked ("stage 1") before moving to a full FAC ("stage 2"). These, in my opinion, would be: A source spotcheck, an assessment of whether the sourcing seems high quality and reliable, and perhaps some sort of "vibe check" over whether editors feel the article ready for a full FAC. It seems that a major concern with the earlier proposal is that it could "gum up the works" by creating a bottleneck. It might alleviate these concerns if we treat "stage 1" as relatively informal (more akin to FAR's "move to FARC" process), and don't require a full source review to be conducted/completed. Hoping to hear other's thoughts on this, but I really consider this something worth at least trialling for a period. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 16:52, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure any changes are needed.

1. "...some sort of "vibe check" over whether editors feel the article ready for a full FAC." - That already happens. Lots of nominations are arechived within a day or two if they are clearly deficient
2. "...A source spotcheck" - I don't think it is practical to do spot checks first/early. The spot checks are very difficult and time-consuming for the reviewer. Common sense says that difficult process should be delayed until other "easier" aspects of the FAC review are performed and passed. Then, only at the end, do the painful spot check. If the spot check uncovers problems, the responsibility lies with the nominator, not the reviewer or with the FAC process.
3. "... an assessment of whether the sourcing seems high quality and reliable " - This could probably be done early. It is not especially time consuming. I think many reviewers (even prose reviewers) already do this as part of the review; but in many nominations it falls to the source spot-checker, and hence is done towards the end. Again, if problems are found, the nominator bears responsibility. The nominator can ask for Peer Reviewers for feedback on that prior to the FAC nomination.

I don't see evidence (in this Talk page post; or in FAC nominations over the past year) indicating that changes are needed to the FAC process. Although suggestion #3 is not a bad idea. Noleander (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Examples of recent FACs that I have been involved in where I or another user made comments that either requested or resulted in substantial changes, after several users had conducted full prose reviews:

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Silent Parade/archive2
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Elizabeth Willing Powel/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Algorithmic amplification/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/SoHo Weekly News/archive2

Examples where conducting a spot-check/vibe check early saved a good bit of grief down the road:

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/League of Legends/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dan Caine/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hundreds of Beavers/archive2

My impression is that this is a real problem and that is supported by a number of FACs that I have been involved in. And I am not a super prolific reviewer! Again no shame intended by linking these (which is why I initially didn't), but I think we do a disservice to users by letting things slide for weeks. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 17:21, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm not saying that a different process would necessarily have caught all of these first, and I'm also not trying to say that all of the comments I raise here are necessarily *right*, but in my experience (while coming to the decision to oppose takes quite a bit of time and effort) I think I usually have a sense of the direction my review/opinion is going, and the magnitude of changes that I would like to see in an article, much more quickly. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:24, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

The idea of doing spot checks first (or more generally, doing what artillerymen call a "gross error check" before diving into nitpicks) has been mooted before -- the stumbling block generally is that there simply aren't all that many reviewers, and most reviewers are better at doing some kinds of reviews than others. In particular, we really don't have many good source reviewers, whereas quite a few of us can read an article and pick out wonky formatting, awkward phrasing and so on. Asking the much larger group to wait until one of the far smaller group has been able to find time to review isn't practical, and I don't think the downsides of that approach would be worth the benefits. The halfway house, of course, is to persuade more prose reviewers to get better (or more interested) in spotchecking, and I think we've had some success there, though more would be to the good. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:34, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm not really sure that I get this sort of objection, though. Personally, when I conduct reviews that are more prose-nitpicky, I prefer to have some sort of "gross error check" (I like that phrasing!) done before rather than after. Are we really short on people who can conduct these sort of check? Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Image and source check requests is currently empty, and has been rather low-activity as of late, suggesting that perhaps it isn't such a bottleneck?

To me, it's rather frustrating when I spend a while making prose comments, only for the article to radically change afterwards as a result of underlying issues. And it was extremely disheartening to experience that as a first time nom as well, after weeks of more minor suggestions. But perhaps that isn't the case for everyone? Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:40, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Have a look through the recent FACs that have included a spot check -- which is, I think, the most common way to uncover major issues (copyvio and TSI, really) that don't become obvious in a regular prose review. I'd be surprised if there's more than five individual editors who have conducted one in the past year or so. And on it's rather frustrating when I spend a while making prose comments, only for the article to radically change afterwards as a result of underlying issues. And it was extremely disheartening to experience that as a first time nom as well, after weeks of more minor suggestions. But perhaps that isn't the case for everyone? , while it's a bit different for first-time nominators (who really should be using a mentor who would hopefully head this off beforehand), I would push the onus back onto the nominators: the solution seems to be, don't nominate an article which has serious underlying issues! Again, I'm talking about things that any reasonable nominator should be able to guard against, like copy-pasting chunks of sources, or claiming that sources support claims that aren't in them, or nominating something that hasn't had a proper proof-read from someone who knows the MoS well. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:13, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Image and source check requests is not always empty - it can go without additions for days then a lot of FACses are added all at once. When I have time and inclination (a bit short of it lately) I empty it out. I think it's important that it (both source reviewing and that requests list) doesn't become unduly dependent on just one person. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 11:28, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

A quick comment regarding - "Another concern I have is that when major structural changes are made late in the review process, it should be viewed as invalidating earlier supports" - in theory, that might violate FA criteria 1e, "stable", which says - "it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process". I would say major structural change goes beyond just edit wars and the content. But if it's just about a source review, I don't think the whole process needs to change, not when a source review is needed at some point in the process. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:31, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Renaming a FAC

Is there any technical problem with renaming an article while it is a FAC? Asking for editors who are wondering if it would cause script errors. Nurg (talk) 12:05, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

The rename process usually creates a REDIRECT link from the old name to the new name, so no links from FAC to the article would fail. The FAC page (and the specific nomination page) would need to be manually edited to display the new name after the rename action. A note about the rename should be included in the FAC nomination page. There might be some FAC statistics-gathering tool that would get confused, but nothing fatal. Noleander (talk) 12:27, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

It's usual to wait till after the FAC is complete to do the rename, to avoid causing problems for FACbot, which does the clerical work at the end of the FAC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:52, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Mike is correct. The coordinators are all very lazy and the thought of having to do some work when we close a nomination rather than leave it to the bot makes us feel sad. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:01, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

There's a lot of clerical work involved in a promotion, up to ten pages, which is why we have the FACBot. While the FACBot is capable of following redirects, best practice is to rename the article, talk page and nomination page and update the templates on the talk page and the FAC nominations page. The reason for this is that while a move usually creates a redirect from the old name to the new, in some cases we don't. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:33, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Speaking of ...

The Currently a featured article candidate link on Athanasius I Manasses points to the (non-existant) Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Athanasius 01 Manasses/archive1 (note the 01 vs I). I assume something got renamed along the way and some script got confused, but I'm not sure exactly what happened or how to fix it. RoySmith (talk) 17:40, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Should be better now! —TechnoSquirrel69 (talk) 18:04, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

So what went wrong? RoySmith (talk) 18:18, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

It seems to have been changed in this edit. Since the edit summary is referring to the WikiProject banner change, I assume this was accidental. I'll send out a courtesy ping for Reverosie in any case. —TechnoSquirrel69 (talk) 18:27, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, this was accidental on my part; I was in the source code to add a wikiproject and noticed the I, thinking it should have been changed to an 01 not knowing it would mess this up. I'm so sorry! ‍🌷Reverosie🌷^★talk★ 21:23, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

No problem. Stuff happens. Life goes on. RoySmith (talk) 21:57, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

The FACBot did complain about it, but TechnoSquirrel69 had fixed it before I got around to looking at it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:15, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

History of cricket to 1725

This has just passed its source review following four successful content reviews. I should mention that I will not be available for at least three weeks from next Sunday, the 23rd. If another review commences in the meantime, can it be put on hold?

Thanks, Jack (talk) 11:27, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Latest update for FAC reviewing statistics and nominator reviewing table?

Hello. I'm actually wondering, is there an update for FAC reviewing statistics and nominator reviewing table? Because the last I saw is in April. From my understanding, it's not automatically updated right? Because I've been trying to look for some reviews I did in the past week.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:37, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

Automating FAC statistics

ZKang123, rather than answer you directly, here's some background and a question about the FAC stats. I've been editing very little since January; the combination of a work emergency and a house move has left me little spare time. One casualty has been the FAC statistics, which take 1-3 hours of work per month, though there are volunteers who help out with the edits so the burden is somewhat shared. I'm starting to have more time again, so I will get the stats updated over the next two or three weeks (I hope), but I'm also going to start editing content and reviewing again. I started doing the stats ten years ago out of curiosity; there was a conversation on this page about changes in reviewer habits and I decided to get data rather than anecdotes to answer the question. Once I started, I kept going back through the archives as well as keeping up with each new month, until with "lunatic persistence" (to borrow a phrase from Robert Silverberg) I had the stats complete back to late 2006.

I can probably keep them going for a while yet, but I have been thinking about automating them. The stats updates take three steps:

1. Create a draft of the stats page for a given month. You can see all the stats pages here, and an explanation of what the data means at the bottom of that page. The page is created by a bot that makes its best guess at who reviewed what, and it tries to exclude bots, coordinators, and nominators, while crediting source and image reviews correctly.
2. A human then reviews the page while scanning the FAC archive on another screen, and updates the stats table to correct the bot's errors. Usually there are dozens of fixes needed each month, as you can see from the page histories. Some months these edits are done by me; other months by other editors (to make these edits you have to be pretty experienced at FAC because there are a lot of judgement calls).
3. The bot reads the corrected page and writes the results to the FAC stats database.

The first and third steps would be easy to automate, but it will never be possible to automate the second step. What could be done, however, is to autogenerate the stats page, and give some users the ability to flag a page as "corrected". Once a page is marked as corrected it would be included in the FAC stats -- that is, the third step above would run automatically. This would remove the dependency on me to run these statistics. It would also allow for corrections to old mistakes in the stats -- and there certainly are mistakes; I estimated my own error rate once as at least 1%.

Is this automation (which would take significant work on my part) worth doing? That is, are these stats useful enough to continue putting editor effort into (mine and/or anyone else's)? And if we have a system like this, we'd have to decide who can do the updates. The current group of volunteers are all current or past FAC coordinators, which is not a coincidence; that's a natural skillset for making these edits. But it's 20+ hours of editor work each year. Does it provide enough value to automate in this way? If I don't automate it, I'll probably keep it going manually for a while; I hate to break a streak. But if the consensus here is that the stats are interesting but not that useful, I'll stop and consider it an interesting ten-year experiment in data gathering. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:14, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I admit I haven't really been a regular in FAC circles. Personally I find the stats interesting, and also my understanding is that it's linked to the GAN/FAC filter toolforge, which records a user's past reviews and experience in FACs (and GAs). I don't also only look at my own profile, but sometimes a few others to check their experience with FACs, and also what to look out for. Also, hopefully you are settling well at your new place. Thanks for the hard work in recording and updating the FAC stats.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 13:42, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm a big fan of the stats. Not sure I have much expertise to help out, but if there are areas that would simply benefit from "more eyes" (catching obvious-ish errors, for example), I'd gladly lend a hand when I can. Seems only fair that those of us who enjoy reading them should pitch in. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:31, 23 August 2026 (UTC)

@Mike Christie If you'd like help with the automation, let me know. I'm currently running User:FACSummaryBot, so I already have code that knows how to parse FACs. Pulling out some additional statistics and building a report should not be a huge amount of work. RoySmith (talk) 14:30, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

I use the stats to ensure that I am keeping a 5-reviews-to-1-nom ratio. I also use it to decide which articles I review, as I only want to review articles from nominators who are also reviewing at FAC. Thanks for compiling these Mike, and I'm in favour of whatever can make the stats-gathering process easier to compile. Z1720 (talk) 16:06, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Echoing the thanks to Mike, and noting that in addition to using them as a spur to myself to review more (not recently, yes, I know), I have quite frequently used them in researching candidates for adminship, whether my own nominees or those being looked at by other nominators. FACstats has provided useful data on a number of occasions. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:22, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the replies. Roy, I'll email you, probably this weekend, and we can see if there's something useful we can combine to do. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:35, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

Minnehaha Park (Minneapolis)

Minnehaha Park (Minneapolis) has been listed at WP:PR for a couple of months looking for a pre-FAC review but has failed to attract any attention. It would be nice if somebody who specializes in parks could give it a look before it shows up here. RoySmith (talk) 02:24, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Template:Inflation and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Zheng Zhegu/archive1 and Template:Inflation/fn and the FA criteria

recently a pleasant and courteous conversation occurred at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Zheng Zhegu/archive1 and a respectful disagreement occurred regarding Template:Inflation/fn. The nominator says the nominator don't have to use Template:Inflation/fn in the nominated article because it's only "good practice" to do so (as noted at Template:Inflation) and not policy. Do any of the featured article criteria require Template:Inflation/fn and can we generate a consensus on if the inflation template footnote is required in featured articles? I for one believe Template:Inflation/fn should be used because 1c requires "inline citations where appropriate" and it would be appropriate to cite where the inflation calculation occurred from. However nominator says no citation because of WP:CALC though I disagree because the calculation isn't routine as it can very based on year. 781h (talk) 18:37, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

In tropical cyclone articles, we typically avoid using inflation figures. That's because a storm from 1926 would cause vastly different damage if it hit today. The 1926 Miami hurricane caused $100 million in 1926 USD, which would be $1.9 billion if it was inflated, but based on population growth and coastal property values, the same storm hitting nowadays would cause $235 billion in damage (123 times the inflated value). IMO, it depends on the money value, and how useful it would be to inflate it. On the other hand, Andrew Carnegie was known for being a rich businessman and philanthropist, so it makes sense to inflate things like - "During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (equivalent to $6.9 billion in 2025 dollars." In the case mentioned, since it's box office/investment figures, and it uses the inflation template, I think the Zheng Zhegu article handles it well. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:51, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

• Also coming here from the Zheng Zhegu nomination. As I understand it, currently, we do not have a standardized approach to inflation figures. As I mentioned at the nomination page, FAs like Abraham Lincoln (2025), Babe Ruth (2014), and Charlie Chaplin (2014) do not include references for inflation (I'm also excluding items I've nominated, which generally don't use references for inflation), while others like Alfred Russel Wallace (2007, reviewed 2023) includes references. Meanwhile, as as HH notes, some articles eschew inflation figures altogether. I do believe that WP:CALC applies, noting the "Numeracy might be necessary to follow a "routine" calculation." disclaimer. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:19, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't think this is the sort of thing where a single unified policy would be helpful. While it's generally useful to help readers contextualise figures, particularly financial amounts, there are times when a straight inflation calculation is helpful and times when it's misleading. Hurricanehink raises an interesting example; some more general cases would be very distant time periods, when there was simply less wealth around, or in places and periods where money went considerably further. In those cases, it's often helpful to add a reference figure for comparison: if someone received or spent a large amount of money, for example, it might be possible to tell the reader how that compared with an average wage; if a medieval monarch spent an amount equivalent to X years of their income on a military campaign, we can say that too. In terms of citation for the {{inflation}} template, I'd agree that WP:CALC applies: the inflation template is very well documented, so it could also be said that the burden of citation is shifted to its documentation page -- in the same way that we don't generally require independent citations for basic, uncontroversial information about an image, such as its subject-matter, author and date, when that information can be found on the File page. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:00, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

• Good point; I already had an available comparison for the period, and for the average reader "500 times the average monthly wage" is a lot clearer than equivalency in current renminbi. On the more general question, thank you for raising the point that we do have other areas where referencing is provided on a separate page ({{convert}} also comes to mind, though to be fair the data it covers is generally of the WP:BLUE variety).  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:39, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

WP:CALC applies to the computation involved in {{inflation}}, but not to the underlying data. Any FA should cite all of the data it uses. If you do not use {{inflation/fn}}, you should make a footnote explaining what inflation data you used for your computation. Inflation is not always the most appropriate tool though; for many historical articles it can be better to find other comparisons or other context for amounts of money. —Kusma (talk) 21:27, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

{{inflation/fn}} doesn't play with SFNs, as far as I know, and I can see problems with taking the "live" data from the convert template and copy-pasting it into something static. What if, for example, a better source of inflation data comes out next year and the template editors change it? {{inflation/fn}} will update, but a static copy created to suit an article using SFNs will not. I'd be tempted to fall back on the letter of WP:CITE, which is Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged -- we might fairly say that there is broad consensus that the {{inflation}} template works and uses reliable data, and therefore that an individual use of it is unlikely to be challenged in good faith on the grounds that the challenger doesn't know what data the template is using to make the calculation. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:07, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

Something completely absurd like claiming inflation equivalence for 100 year old prices should always come with a citation that allows the reader to understand what the number is supposed to mean and what kind of data was used to compute it. If the template does not play nice with sfn, that does not sound like an unsurmountable challenge. It is certainly better to mix citation styles than to present unsourced data without context, especially in top quality articles. —Kusma (talk) 15:46, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

Must all book sources used in all FA nominations be the latest edition?

The China article is nominated for FA . GumballNine1Nine is performing a source review and they stated in the review that all book sources used in any FA nomination must use the most recent edition of the book. I've never seen that interpretation before: in the past, an older edition could be used provided that (a) the source is reliable and high quality; (b) the nominator, despite reasonable efforts, could not obtain the newest edition; (c) the nominator has no reason to think the newest edition has substantial changes (related to the facts it is supporting in the article); and (d) the facts being supported by the cite are not current events, demographic statistics, modern scientific topics, or otherwise dynamic or contentious. (Pinging nominator Generalissima). What is the convention within FAC for this? Noleander (talk) 23:32, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

• I personally would not expect a requirement for the newest edition to be feasible. In many instances, subsequent editions have relatively minimal changes, and if the information being supported is established rather than part of ongoing academic development, there is no reason to insist on the newer edition; sure, there could be an error that gets corrected, but we have that with other sources as well. Adding to that, if an FAC criterion were the use of only the most recent sources, how many FAs would have to be reviewed and potentially delisted because a new edition of a source came out? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:38, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, no one has ever mentioned that ever. I get it if there was a correction in a later edition, but this requirement has never been the case. How would you even know what the latest is when things are constantly being reprinted? Darkwarriorblake (talk) 23:39, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

There is no requirement to use the latest edition of the book. I use whichever one I happen to have on hand and make no effort to determine if a more recent edition exists. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:19, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

Agree with all above - it's not a requirement. I might add that for out of copyright older books, what the "most recent edition" actually is can become an issue. There are some areas, notably archaeology dependent on carbon-dating etc, where one may need to be very careful. Sandars, Nancy K., Prehistoric Art in Europe, Penguin (Pelican, now Yale, History of Art), 1968 (nb 1st edn.) is an excellent source for art history, but the dates should not be used. Johnbod (talk) 02:53, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

So what, if you cite the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, you’re supposed to check every quarter for the next decade whether the relevant article has been published in the third edition? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 07:04, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

As others have said, this isn't a requirement and shouldn't be. If a source reviewer finds that (for example) the article has cited the third edition of the Encyclopaedia of Somesuch, and that the fourth edition has been updated to remove or contradict the cited statement, then that's a relevant concern that should be brought in. But a blanket rule that any edition other than the latest is inadmissible would be very silly. After all, if you look at the text of most new editions, you'll find that many of the articles don't change a whole lot -- I remember looking at an online Britannica article, supposedly updated in the 2010s, which was a verbatim copy of the one they published in the 1930s. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:01, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

IMO the only time I'd consider something like that to be a problem is a medical / biomedical article per WP:MEDDATE, which demands references and research be up to date. And even that to me would depend on how long it's been between editions. So yes, it can matter. 781h (talk) 08:31, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

@Noleander: If you also plan to submit a featured article to a WikiJournal in Wikiversity through a WikiJournal article nomination, because of the currency requirements for WikiJournal articles, yes, you must use the latest volume. Otherwise, if you are doing only a featured article candidate here, no, you do not need to use the latest volume. Z. Patterson (talk) 01:00, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think there is a requirement that the latest edition is used, but using an older one can lead to outdatedness. So one ought to explain at times why not the more recent edition. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 09:24, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

• No, it is not a requirement and it shouldn't be. I have expensive virology textbooks of which, for some, there are later editions. These books are not available on-line as PDFs and they are not kept by my local and university libraries. Editors should not be required to spend their hard-earned money just to obtain (or retain) an FA, on new books. If older editions contain errors, that is another matter, which will be picked up.Graham Beards (talk) 09:39, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

On LLMs for FAC reviewing

I think I should also raise this issue here, given plenty of FACs might be affected given the actions of one user, Metalicat.

A few previous relevant discussions:

• ANI discussion: "Metalicat and AI communications" (archived)
• Pat O'Keeffe talk-page discussion, which was TFA until someone noted concerns of genAI text and now on FAR.
• WT:GAN discussion
• Metalicat's "apology" on ANI

I don't think this is exactly a chronic problem on FACs (thus far a case for one user), though also now it brings into question about some of Metalicat's past reviews and also nominations (the latter which is better discussed on WP:FAR). But also the question is, if a review is suspected of being LLM-generated, what should the procedure be? Should their comments just be disregarded and hidden, as I've seen in RfCs and ANIs?--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 13:19, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

As someone who "benefited" from one of Metalicat's LLM-generated reviews, the feedback was useful and did improve the article, but I would never expect anyone to consider it in terms of promotion. In fact, I pulled that FAC this morning since it had received no other feedback. Bgsu98 (Talk) 13:28, 30 August 2026 (UTC)

Considering the disputes around the reliability of AI detection, I'd want more than a "suspected of being LLM-generated" before taking any action. I also think we need to think about whether LLM suggestions are in fact universally bad - I know I have used a LLM prompt authored by Esculenta to prep some of my articles pre-FAC and I think it does a good work at spotting prose issues. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:27, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I quite often use LLMs to proof-read my own stuff, though I ask them to look for clear errors rather than subjective improvements -- they're pretty good at spotting a stray "the the", or a "licence" that should be a "license". However, that's quite different from using them to write something, least of all a review, and it's fairly well established here as a point of civility that we owe other editors the respect of taking our own time to write what we are asking them to read. That's separate from the good but distinct reasons why we don't want LLM-generated text in article space. In general I'd share Jo-Jo's concerns that it's easy to accuse someone of LLM use and hard to prove it, and indeed some of the arguments brought forward in the linked discussions strike me as very likely to generate false positives. However, we already have clear guidance at WP:LLMCHAT: Editors should not use LLMs to write comments generatively. Communication is at the root of Wikipedia's decision-making process and it is presumed that editors contributing to the English-language Wikipedia possess the ability to come up with their own ideas. Comments that do not represent an actual person's thoughts are not useful in discussions, and comments that are obviously generated by an LLM or similar AI technology may be struck or collapsed. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:17, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Theo Faiss

This nomination has, I'm sorry to say, been languishing for the past month. Though I had high hopes for it being a seamless nomination (it is effectively the companion article to another article that passed FAC last month), it got bogged down in some (now resolved) ancillary issues, and then—shortly after the first substantive review appeared, and the sky appeared to clear—that review was called into question due to issues of LLM usage (as discussed in the topic immediately above).

Thus, with archiving apparently imminent, I thought I would post here in case anyone has the interest (and bandwidth) to review this article. I'd be more than happen to provide a review in turn, either here or at GAN (obviously with no expectations). Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 17:51, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ben Roberts-Smith/archive1

Hi all,
This was recently failed by @David Fuchs. I presume this is due to the nomination timing out? The nomination had two supports and I was awaiting further review from @Peacemaker67, but who has been offline a bit. Am I able to renominate when I get back from the vacation I'm currently on? TarnishedPath^talk 23:34, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

Per FAC instructions, you can re-nominate two weeks from the date the previous nom was archived. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:37, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Check my PR advice about id numbers

In Special:Diff/1373010243, I gave @Z. Patterson some advice about how to select which ID numbers to include in a citation. Reference formatting is not my strong point, so I'd appreciate if somebody would take a look to make sure I haven't given them bad advice. Thanks. RoySmith (talk) 13:59, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

I think your advice is perfectly good -- I take you as saying that ISBN + DOI or, where no ISBN can be found, OCLC + DOI is a good second choice, but ISBN + OCLC + LCCN etc is overkill. Personally, I think that's sound advice and the rationale is good; I'm not sure I'd object to an article that consistently provided all three, but then as you note FAC loves consistency and following your advice would give the nominator one less thing to worry about from us grumpy reviewers. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:09, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Your advice seems generally good. An OCLC isn't needed if there's already an ISBN or LCCN; the latter two are numbers found in the book, whereas an OCLC is a number generated after the fact. Because listings on WorldCat (which are identified by OCLC) will almost always also have any ISBC/LCCN that exists, the OCLC becomes redundant. I would include all numbers that are found in the printed matter itself (ISBN, LCCN, etc.). They're permanently associated with the book, and someone may have a preference for one over the other. Also, if you list only one—and then a user tries to find it in a database that also lists only one, but the other one—that user is out of luck. (And who knows, perhaps one is printed incorrectly—it happens—or someone gets confused by an ISBN-10 that's been converted into an ISBN-13.)

I'm not familiar with OL/NCID/CRID identifiers, but—if they're just compilations of bibliographic information—I would see little value in them. The citation itself should include the bibliographic information, so I would exclude such identifiers unless there is an independent justification for including them.

One nuance I might draw, however, is with identifiers that actually provide access to a work: DOI, JSTOR, URL, etc. Here, I tend to think that more is better. Some databases might be behind a paywall, or included in different subscriptions; some works might be removed from databases over time.

Those are my two cents. I'm on the more-inclusive side of the debate, so take it for whatever it's worth. Usernameunique (talk) 20:48, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

OL identifiers are for the Open Library, to which anyone can add entries (see WP:USERGEN). It's a very useful tool when you've dug up old, (particularly) non-English works that don't have ISBNs and aren't listed by WorldCat etc, but there's a lot of duplication and no assurance that the work in question actually exists. I'd suggest keeping those as an absolute last resort if no other identifier exists. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:17, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

7,000 FAs

We just achieved our 7,000th FA. 🥳 FrB.TG (talk) 06:30, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I just suggested that get added to the signpost. Very impressive, great work everyone. Maybe 10,000 FA's by Wikipedia's 30th anniversary in 2031 :P ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:43, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

A target of 0.1% of English WP articles is another good goal to shoot for (currently 7.23M articles) ... but that is a moving target. Noleander (talk) 22:48, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

The fact that FAs have remained at just over 1 in 1000 for a long while, while the proportion of GAs are increasing slowly (ie from 1 in 200 in 2019 to 1 in 163 a couple months ago). JuniperChill (talk) 17:55, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Interesting data. The % of FAs has been steadily increasing from 0.0791% in 2006 to 0.0965% in 2026. That is 0.00087 per year. At that rate, FAs should hit 0.1% within the next decade :-) Noleander (talk) 18:05, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Request for FA mentor

I currently have a page in Peer review that I'd like to take to FAC in the near future and wanted to follow the strong recommendations for an FAC mentor. The page is Assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Thanks! Dizzycheekchewer (talk) 15:11, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

@Dizzycheekchewer You can refer to WP:FACFAQ, which has information on the FAC process and mentoring. Best, MSincccc (talk) 05:44, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

@Dizzycheekchewer: have you tried directly approaching FAC writers with experience in the relevant area? There is a list of editors generally willing to act as mentors at WP:FAMENTOR, but I often find it more useful to look at the Assessment sections of relevant WikiProjects, find the FAs in that project, and contact the main editors of those. Here is the list for political biographies and here is the one for Africa. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:50, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! That's very helpful. Dizzycheekchewer (talk) 20:30, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

This is an interesting article about an important event. If anyone wants to help the nominator out, the Peer Review page is here. Noleander (talk) 20:46, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

FAC peer review sidebar

{{FAC peer review sidebar}} lists requests for review prior to posting at FAC. Many of these are from first-time FAC nominators who need some extra hand-holding. Some are articles for which an earlier FAC nomination resulted in a recommendation to try PR where they often languish for lack of reviewers. If there's problems it's better to point them out at PR than to wait for them to get to FAC. So the next time you have some time to review an article, please check {{FAC peer review sidebar}} as well as the main listing. RoySmith (talk) 13:37, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

In Memory of Theo Faiss

This may well not be the right place to bring this, but—having not found myself in this situation before—I thought I'd bring it here.

This article passed FAC two months ago. It's been in the same state since then, save some trimming to avoid duplication with Theo Faiss. Just now, however, Altenmann came along and tacked two banners atop the page, saying it reads like an essay and may contain original research—without explaining any of the reasoning. I removed the banners; Altenmann put them back; I removed them; and Altenmann followed suit, kindly stating that YOu [sic] will be blocked for rewmoval [sic] tas [sic] without discussion. So here we are. Altenmann has since offered a remarkably short justification for the tags on the talk page.

Any suggestions?

Pinging those from the review: MSincccc, Crystal Drawers, BorgQueen, RoySmith, Metalicat. --Usernameunique (talk) 03:00, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

When tags are added, the best course of action is to open a discussion on the Talk page and try to come to consensus. If input from additional editors is desired, you can create a Request for Comments (RfC) in the Talk page. Help:Maintenance template removal suggests that it's inappropriate to unilaterally remove tags without discussion first (see WP:MAINTENANCEDISAGREEMENT). On the other hand, getting promoted to featured article status is a kind of consensus established by several editors, and that consensus should be respected. The person adding the tags should identify several specific sentences or phrases that they find concerning. Noleander (talk) 03:58, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it is FA, that's why I didnt dive headlong into editing, e.g., its 7-feet-long lede. --Altenmann >talk 04:09, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Since it is FA, an alternative to adding tags is to post the article at Wikipedia:Featured article review. That process suggests you should discuss in the article's talk page first, and wait two to three weeks before posting at FAR. Noleander (talk) 04:24, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

There's a lot going on here. I'm certainly not in favor of edit warring, and the threats of being blocked were a bit over the top. One way or another, however, the discussion has found its way to the article talk page, which is the right place to discuss the article's contents.

On the other hand, I don't agree with the philosophy that passing FA automatically grants immunity to further editing or even tagging. In this case, the article has already undergone significant editing by the primary author and FA nominator, including splitting out an entire new article. At least some of Altenmann's complaint ("Unnecessarily detaied bios") is directly related to how material should be divided between those two articles, so I think the "But it's FA" defense is somewhat disingenuous. RoySmith (talk) 12:44, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, RoySmith. Agree that passing FA is not a reason to refrain from continuing to improve an article. For the sake of clarity, I would note that the article on Theo Faiss was split out before nominating that on the relief; it happened during the GA review. And most of those further edits to which you point were carried out in response to your comments at the Theo Faiss FAC (RIP). --Usernameunique (talk) 02:52, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

"Remarkably short", eh? Bloody AGF. Yes, you may be blocked for undiscussed removal of tags. --Altenmann >talk 03:03, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

There is some legitimacy to the critique that Altenmann has presented. It is though 'remarkably short' and undetailed particularly by comparison to the review the article underwent to acquire FA status. Altenmann, you don't offer any explanation for why you've placed the 'personal essay' tag at the top of the article and you certainly didn't present any evidence of 'original research'. You are far more likely to be blocked for unexplained tagging than usernameunique is for removing them, particularly when that is paired with barely comprehensible edit summaries (e.g. 'Do not remove tags. Nothing wrong with ny efit hisroty, WP:AGF') and unnecessary personalization (e.g. '... and I run into your fav essay while formatting Faiss ...').

The first issue claimed, that the lede is 'huge', is vacuous. An FA is expected to have a lede typically between 250 and 400 words in length per WP:LEADLENGTH. This article at 350 words is within that typical range. It is certainly not 'huge'. Whether it contains extraneous detail within that is a separate matter.

The second and third issues, that the background is unnecessarily detailed and that sections of it appear unrelated to the subject of the article appear somewhat valid. For example, it is not until I read the themes, that I was able to make any connection between the reliefs and the Goetheanum. Equally, that the reliefs were once held in the Goetheanum isn't mentioned until the very last paragraph of the article under provenance. The last two subsections of the background in large part don't come across as 'background detail' that contextualizes the content that follows. Rather, you have to read the later content in order to make heads or tails of the background that precedes it. In all, after reading the article I am left with the impression that the article is well researched, but questionably structured. It takes, however, far more than five minutes to read and comprehend a two-thousand word long article. Mr rnddude (talk) 07:03, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Mr rnddude, I've copied your comment verbatim to the talk page in question so it can be part of the discussion there. If that's not what you want to see, then apologies and please feel free to remove it. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 07:58, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

SchroCat – No issue at all. I was in two minds about whether to post here or there. Thanks for the notification. Mr rnddude (talk) 09:52, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

I also fail to see any benefit to these comments on the article's talk page: "You know what, I am knee deep in bringing order to {surname} pages for years now. and I run into your fav essay while formatting Faiss: adding refs to it etc. Sorry to insult your sensitivities, but I am just as entitled to my opinion as you are. Yes, five minutes was enough to conlcude that the article was bloated compared with articles about world-famous work of art, such as Girl with a Pearl Earring. - the latter one is a perfect example of writing straight to the point without extra musings, and I quiclky get info about painting, not about what Vermeer ate for breakfast while creating it." Bgsu98 (Talk) 07:51, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Even for a GA, there should be absolutely no reason why the cleanup tags need adding in the first place, especially for an article that just passed GA/FA and has been kept updated by the nominator since then. An article would fail both processes if it has (or needs) cleanup tags anyway. The general rule should simply be to use the discussion page on GA/FAs before adding those tags (or taking it to FAR) JuniperChill (talk) 14:28, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

I have taken the position in such discussions that a recent FA which has not changed very much has consensus that it meets the FA criteria by virtue of having passed FA. Wehwalt (talk) 21:19, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks to all who chimed in. I appreciate the response—not just for resolving this drive-by tagging (which appears to have finished driving by), but also for providing thoughtful suggestions on the article. As said above, passing FAC is a marker of quality and consensus, but that is no reason to not continue improving an article. --Usernameunique (talk) 02:47, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Bot error report

Featured: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rain (Madonna song)/archive4 archived but has NOT been moved to the Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/September 2026 archive page.

I am away at present and am unable to troubleshoot this, so I guess it will have to be processed manually. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:34, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Or you can wait until I get back in October. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:11, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Tks Hawkeye -- I tweaked the entry in the archived nominations log, we might have it now. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:46, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

That seems to have done the trick. Thank you, Hawkeye and Ian. FrB.TG (talk) 12:28, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't see a search box on this page

It seems there should be one. ~2026-45985-49 (talk) 16:59, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

If you mean to search the archives, click the [show] button and it will appear at the bottom. If you mean something else, please be more specific. There is a search bar on every page, and many have multiple. Mr rnddude (talk) 17:43, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

To clarify, I am referring to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, not Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. ~2026-45985-49 (talk) 19:57, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

No, because the archived candidates are archived elsewhere, depending on whether they passed or failed. If you want to search for something on the current page, the browser’s search facility works as well as anything else. Was there something specific you were looking for? Knowing that would help in pointing you in the right direction. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 21:27, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

You could use the normal wiki search feature to search everything in Category: Featured articles. Something like this for example, which finds all FAs that have the word "banana" in them. Using Category:Wikipedia featured article candidates would search all the current candidates. Adding a search box that makes that easier would not be a bad idea. RoySmith (talk) 22:01, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

@RoySmith - Do you have a similar search command that would search all FAC review pages? I trust the sensibilities of FA reviewers, and it would be useful to see how they apply various WP guidelines. Example:

Find all FA reviews (past and present) that mention "ALTTEXT" (sorted with most recent at top).

Noleander (talk) 22:09, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Hmm. It's slow, but this might do it. RoySmith (talk) 23:05, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Then it would be better to add a search bar to the page that just searches all subpages of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates... ~2026-45985-49 (talk) 23:10, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

There's a lot of subpages that are not FACs. The intitle: regex I added was to filter those out. RoySmith (talk) 23:20, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks ... works great; returns in about 1 second for me. Noleander (talk) 23:14, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

I suspect when I ran the search it got cached and you just got the cached version. If you run a different search, it'll probably be a lot slower. RoySmith (talk) 23:18, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

I tried it with 3 distinct MOS shortcut strings: all were 1 second or faster. Noleander (talk) 00:07, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm perplexed, but happy it's working for you. RoySmith (talk) 00:15, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Re: "Adding a search box that makes that easier would not be a bad idea": Maybe it could be put somewhere into Template:FA sidebar, perhaps in the "Tools and scripts" section. Noleander (talk) 00:12, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

I wanted to search all featured article candidates discussions in the past. I think this would be useful. (In my case, I was trying to search for a certain username to see if they had contributed to any FAC discussions) For a similar example, you can search all administrator's noticeboard discussions in the past (including the ones on the incidents page). ~2026-45985-49 (talk) 23:00, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

This tool will let you do that. It goes back to late 2006 but is missing the last few months. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:09, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

FAR is in need of reviewers

Hi all! It would be very helpful if a few of the folks here could come by WP:FAR and offer reviews on a nom or two - there are a number of entries that have stalled. A couple of the longer ones have active work ongoing, but others are lingering because only one or two people have engaged so far. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:40, 19 September 2026 (UTC)