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Upcoming RFC on citation styles

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There's a dispute about whether maintaining the capitalization of titles as used by (varying) sources is "consistent". Please keep an eye on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#RFC sandbox for an upcoming RFC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:41, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting "Wars, battles and events" category?

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As more articles are promoted to featured status, some categories may become so large that it becomes difficult to navigate and find a specific article of interest. With 317 articles, "Wars, battles and events" has become the largest category at WP:FA.

Should this category be split? If yes, should it be split by type ("Wars and campaigns" & "Battles and events", for example), by the time period which the article's contents took place ("Pre-1914" & "Post-1914", for example) or by location ("North America and South America", "Europe", "Asia", "Africa" & "Miscellaneous" for example). My preference is by type, but I'm not a warfare expert so those who write in that field probably have a better perspective than me. Z1720 (talk) 13:02, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Type seems to be the best option in this case versus time period or locations, but I can see the argument that the delineation between what's a campaign or battle versus event could be porous (then again, lots of wars span geographic confines and would be hard to place, as well.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:59, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While I would like to split the battles from everything else, splitting on date would make a ton of sense -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 15:21, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would be inclined to split by date. Region would be to nebulous for some cases and the date is much more cut and dry than trying to determine what counts as a campaign, or a battle, or an event. Hog Farm Talk 16:32, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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This is probably a topic for the WP:Village Pump, but I wanted to ask here first.

Istanbul was promoted to FA on October 16, 2012.

The editor responsible for promotion, Tariqabjotu, seems to have last edited the article in August 2015 [1]

I recently changed the lead, but the article was in pretty bad shape as of last month [2].

An FA article that is Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/3 and mostly in a WP:Contentious topic area degrading that much doesn't bode well.

Is this an isolated case or is it normal for FA articles to degrade after people responsible for promoting them become inactive? Bogazicili (talk) 21:16, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It definitely happens. There is a featured article review process, and WP:URFA/2020 is an initiative begun in late 2019 to review pre-2016 features article promotions. WP:FARGIVEN is a list of featured articles where editors have raised concerns about continuing quality. Hog Farm Talk 21:41, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see a proposal in Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Protect_featured_articles but I am not convinced that the current system is working.
There seems to be some recent research on this:

Our findings indicate that the effect of page protection on article quality depends on the characteristics of the page prior to the intervention: high-quality articles are affected positively, as opposed to low-quality articles that are impacted negatively. Subsequent analysis suggests that high-quality articles degrade when left unprotected, whereas low-quality articles improve. Overall, with our study, we outline page protections on Wikipedia and inform best practices on whether and when to protect an article.

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I will look for some feedback here and then go to Wikipedia:Village pump Bogazicili (talk) 21:53, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Really, I've seen three main types of FA demotion - article was never up to current standard (mainly older promotions + some with major sourcing issues that slipped through the cracks at FAC), unmaintained ones where people keep adding low-quality content over the years, and cases where the article quit being maintained and fell way out of date. I don't think there's a way to prevent FA deterioration other than personally maintaining the article. Hog Farm Talk 21:58, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly my point. Once the person or people responsible for FA promotion become inactive, do FA articles generally deteriorate? You don't think something like permanent extended confirmed protection be useful? Bogazicili (talk) 22:04, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except that would not be helpful in the case with something like IFK Goteborg where they need was for someone new to start editing the article, or Samuel Merrill Woodbridge where keeping it in the FA-promoted state is not desirable because the referencing was fabricated. Both of those examples are FAs demoted in the last several years. Hog Farm Talk 22:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If those type of experiences are more common, my proposal wouldn't make sense.
If those are the rare type of experiences though, people can always ask for page specific exceptions or something. Bogazicili (talk) 22:24, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why this article (and me) in particular is being called out. I figured this was a pretty normal thing. I'm sure some people continue to go back to articles they've brought up to featured status in the hopes that they maintain that status, or maybe they've had a long-term interest in that article. Maybe back in the day, I would have been honored to see the implication that the article is my article, but it's not. It also seems you're unaware that Istanbul lost its FA status five years ago. -- tariqabjotu 23:14, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think Wikipedia has not yet built a culture of maintaining status articles after they are promoted. Instead, there is a sense of "done" after their promotions. I am guilty of this: I have not searched for additional sources for William Lyon Mackenzie since its FA promotion. City articles like Istanbul, has information to update after a census (every 10ish years). The city's history is also updated with new events, but these updates cannot dominate the rest of the history section. Bogazicili and other interested editors can go to WP:FAR and WP:URFA/2020 to help identify featured articles that need maintenance and either make the edits yourself or bring the articles to FAR so that other interested editors might address concerns. Feel free to ping me with questions or to look something over. Z1720 (talk) 00:31, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I try to keep my articles up-to-date but the problem is that this is a lot of work. I stopped writing new articles mostly because the workload of updating each article every year became too much. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:47, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To refocus the discussion here, is there any support for any of the following? What is the feedback? Depending on the feedback, I'll take it to WP:VP
Would any of the above help in maintaining articles or are they unnecessary? Bogazicili (talk) 19:41, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just from personal experience with the FAR process, with writing 30-some FAs, and as a former FAC coordinator, I have my doubts that this would be helpful. It's not going to solve the out-of-date issues, nor is indefinite protection going to serve as a true replacement for editor engagement and upkeep on the article. Really, what FAs need are editors to monitor and shepherd the article and update it with new material when such is published (I still need to go back and add the new Smith work to Battle of Raymond myself). Hog Farm Talk 03:12, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And the issue is when some FAs do not have "editors to monitor and shepherd the article". Bogazicili (talk) 20:08, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
None of these things would help anything, because the issue is not newby editors but lack of updating work. And note the omission bias problem; sometimes newby edits are good/beneficial. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:19, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with the sentiments up here. Protection can be useful in limited circumstances, but if there's truly an FA that has fallen apart from bad edits and is otherwise mostly up-to-date, the FA promoted revision is right in article history, and you can just wholesale revert to that and use it as a basis for making improvements. But there are very few FAs that can't be improved after the fact, with a fresh set of eyes on a line edit or rebalancing content based on new sources, etc. Wikipedia by its nature is a living encyclopedia, and it's pretty tough for work to be "done" on a lot of subjects aside from very small, discrete ones perhaps. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 12:10, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Protection doesn't imply that work is done, and there's always talk page discussions and edit requests. Having said that, there doesn't seem to be any support here for any of the three options above. Bogazicili (talk) 20:09, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:DVRTed/refInfo.js script

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This script toggles {{ref info}} on your current article. It's very useful for gnoming. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:13, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § RFC: Adding featured and good content status to the tagline

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § RFC: Adding featured and good content status to the tagline. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:57, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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