Wikipedia talk:Featured topics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
If you have any questions about a topic you are working on you can ask them at Featured topic questions. This page is primarily for discussion on featured topics in general and their place within Wikipedia.

Article alerts[edit]

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:08, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

FT criteria[edit]

I was wondering what other people think about this. Since the topic itself is just a template, does anyone think it is a good idea that a template page contain a 1-paragraph blurb also? This text would be hidden from transclusions by the noinclude option, but if somebody stumbles upon the template page of the topic, they get an idea what the topic is about. The signpost does a relatively good job at introducing a topic so here is how the last promoted FT would look like:


Looking Glass Studios was an American video game developer founded in 1990 as Blue Sky Productions by Paul Neurath in Salem, New Hampshire. The company's first game was Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss in 1992, which received widespread critical acclaim and sold nearly 500,000 units. Looking Glass proceeded to develop titles in multiple genres, including role-playing, sports, flight simulation, and stealth video games. These titles were primarily published by Origin Systems, Electronic Arts and Eidos Interactive, with three titles self-published by Looking Glass Studios

17 articles
Featured list Looking Glass Studios video games
LGS topic icon.png
Featured article Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
Good article John Madden Football '93
Good article Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds
Featured article System Shock
Featured article Flight Unlimited
Featured article Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri
Good article Voyager
Good article British Open Championship Golf
Featured article Flight Unlimited II
Good article Thief: The Dark Project
Good article Command & Conquer
Featured article System Shock 2
Featured article Flight Unlimited III
Good article Destruction Derby
Featured article Thief II: The Metal Age
Good article Jane's Attack Squadron


The format could be improved visually. Nergaal (talk) 07:33, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

  • I like it. Since Featured Topics are now on appearing on the main page, it might be best if they have something to get insight on what the topic the articles apart is about. GamerPro64 14:23, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Warning[edit]

Hello all. I am just warning you guys that Battle of Marathon is at a Good Article Reassessment here. Battle of Marathon is part of the Battles of the Greco-Persian Wars good topic which will have to be demoted if Battle of Marathon is demoted. -- NickGibson3900 Talk 05:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the heads up. I will be watchlisting the reassessment to see what the results of the review will be. GamerPro64 15:15, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Dec 2014 milestones[edit]

There are currently 135 FTs, 267 GTs, and some 86 or 87 former topics. By the end of 2014, there were over 400 featured or good topics. For comparison here is a table with EoY counts.

Date FTs GTs Total topics Yearly change Of which demotions
Dec 2014 136 270 406 +22 -6
Dec 2013 123 261 384 +38 -5
Dec 2012 114 232 346 +65 -4
Dec 2011 104 177 281 +46 -8
Dec 2010 94 141 235 +60 -16
Dec 2009 99 76 175 +70 -13
Dec 2008 76 31 105 +54 -4
Aug 2008
(FTs and GTs split)
51 0 51 +10 -
Apr 2008 - - 41 - -

A really slow year for GTs, partially because wp:CUP stopped incentivizing topics since 2012, and because there has been a notable tendency to merge GTs into much, much larger topics. On the other hand, the +13 FTs this year is the largest yearly gain since 2009, and it also includes a few losses to mergers. Nergaal (talk) 23:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

How does it compare to the number of topics that got demoted? GamerPro64 02:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
5ish per year. Nergaal (talk) 18:52, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


FT criteria clarification[edit]

For anybody watching this page I would appreciate some further input at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_topic_criteria#Intro_para_as_requirement_for_FT. Nergaal (talk) 19:16, 1 June 2015 (UTC)