Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/December 2023

did petty work long enough in somers town during the 1910s that it would be reasonable to describe her time working in the area as "[d]uring the 1910s"? the article body states that "[s]hortly after 1910 Petty was employed in a dental and medical centre in Newport, Essex ... until October 1914 when she was employed by the NFRA as a travelling lecturer", and it seems unusual if petty worked in somers town while either working in newport or travelling. my impression after reading the article body is that saying "During the 1900s" may be more accurate, especially if a book about her work was published in 1910, but i am unable to confirm this from the article alone. dying (talk) 21:59, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, good spot! I’ve tweaked the article. - SchroCat (talk) 22:19, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

i presume that the term "Wall Street" is being used as a metonym in the blurb, as i did not get the impression from the article that mccotter focused his campaign on the physical street in manhattan's financial district. the article that the link targets, however, does focus on the physical street. since there will likely be main page readers unfamiliar with the use of this term as a metonym, would it be more appropriate to replace the link with one that more explicitly states what it is referring to? for example, "Wall Street" could be replaced by "banking" (targeting the "Banking in the United States" article) or "financial services" (targeting the "Financial services in the United States" article). dying (talk) 21:59, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest changing the link to Wall Street Wehwalt (talk) 00:37, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

oh, that is a good option as well, Wehwalt. thanks for implementing it. dying (talk) 05:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

i am just noting here for the benefit of the tfa coordinators, in case it comes up at wp:errors, that i had considered the cree nation to be the relevant country to reference in this blurb. note that canada is not mentioned in either the article lead or body, and that the canadian confederation did not occur until 1867. also, i admittedly relied on the extra character allowance for blurbs without images, so i apologize in advance for creating extra work if an image is eventually added. dying (talk) 21:59, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I went through Dying's edits and the TFA blurb; I have no concerns. Although European colonisers in this part of North America might have called themselves Canadian, the Indigenous populations were specifically left out of major agreements and the colonial political system. It's very unlikely that Abishabis ever thought of himself as "Canadian" and probably identified as Cree. I doubt that an image will be added as I couldn't find any depictions of Abishabis in my searches. Z1720 (talk) 14:08, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

in the episode, was the points system actually used to sort good and bad acts? my impression from the article's plot summary was that the system was used to sort good and bad people. assigning points to the acts seems to have been part of the method used by the system, rather than the purpose of the system. dying (talk) 22:59, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dying: The system gives a point total to each act a person does based on how good/bad it is, and the sum of all those points over someone's life determines where they go in the afterlife. I think it's better to say it sorted the acts individually (the article says everything someone does on Earth is assigned a positive or negative point value, which links the scores to actions), but I'm open to suggestions for rewording. RunningTiger123 (talk) 19:42, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I made an adjustment to your edits to avoid "Starring X...", since it implies the show had only two main cast members when there were really six (and Danson and Carden weren't really the two leads on the main cast). RunningTiger123 (talk) 19:44, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

RunningTiger123, thanks for that rewording; it's better than what i had come up with. i think the punctuation surrounding the parenthetical is supposed to be in italics, though, i.e., "(pictured)" rather than "(pictured)". it's an idiosyncratic main page practice.

regarding the afterlife system, the blurb currently appears to state that the reason the system exists is to sort good and bad acts: "the afterlife system for sorting good and bad acts" [emphasis added]. your comment suggests to me that this is not the case. the system does seem to sort the acts individually, but that does not seem to be the main objective of the system. would the rewording "the afterlife system for sorting good and bad people" be more appropriate? alternatively, the rewording "the afterlife system that sorts good and bad acts" would keep the focus on the acts without stating that sorting them was the purpose of the system. dying (talk) 20:59, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, now I see what you're getting at; the latter rewording works well and I'll update it accordingly. Thanks for providing a copyedit! RunningTiger123 (talk) 02:50, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dying: Thanks for your edit, and I really like the clarification where Wild found the specimen; I will take that over for the article too. But I disagree with replacing "Ohmdenosaurus" with "The dinosaur" or "the sauropod". Both instances you changed do indeed refer to the genus, and not to the specimen. This should be reverted to the original version (both generic names and species are singular, per convention, while higher-level groups are plural. For example "Ohmdenosaurus is", and "Dinosaurs are"). However, there is no difference in how we refer to species or genera. Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:29, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

oh, i'm sorry, Jens Lallensack! i had not realized that that part of my copyedit was controversial, and have partially reverted myself to restore the wording used when the article was promoted to fa status. to be clear, i was attempting to refer to all specimens of o. liasicus, not just the specific specimen found in the posidonia shale, though i don't know if my rewording successfully conveyed this. i had thought that the concern that JMCHutchinson raised in the aforementioned error report seemed valid, and tried to reword the blurb to accommodate. perhaps JMCHutchinson could suggest something more fitting, if it is a concern here? dying (talk) 04:59, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I'm not enamored of the caption. "The only known specimen, of some lower leg bones". I'm not sure what the reader is going to make of that.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wehwalt, the caption is just what was originally passed in as the argument to the "title" parameter. i had thought it was reasonable, and had assumed that the "title" parameter was used by accident. it's also similar to what is being used in the infobox caption. i had briefly considered including the name of the genus or species, as seen here and here, but the caption already seemed long enough. i'm not attached to the caption, though, but was unable to think of anything that was a clear improvement. do you have a better alternative? dying (talk) 04:59, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What about "These lower leg bones comprise its only known specimen"?--Wehwalt (talk) 14:40, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I always consider 'comprise' unnecessarily formal and difficult to understand for people whose first language isn't English. What about "These lower leg bones are its only known specimen"? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:47, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine. And I would even go so far as to say "Ohmdenosaurus's" rather than "its" if there is space. Wehwalt (talk) 14:49, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative options could be "Fossil shinbone and ankle, the only known specimen" or "These remains of the lower leg are the only known specimen of Ohmdenosaurus". Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:07, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What about "These lower leg bones are the only remains of Ohmdenosaurus"? It is slightly shorter and simpler.--Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:12, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't you want to throw a "known" before only? Wehwalt (talk) 15:32, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sure: "These lower leg bones are the only known remains of Ohmdenosaurus". Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:34, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Ok with that. Wehwalt (talk) 16:13, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

wow, that's much better than anything i came up with. i'd add a '.' at the end to conform with

mos:capfrag, but it looks good otherwise. dying (talk) 22:59, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Implemented.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:18, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

would it be more appropriate to mention the estimated number of players by 1995 before the estimated number of copies sold by 1999? the current order initially suggested to me that the first estimate was based on the number of people who had played the game by some date on or after 1999, as i had incorrectly assumed that the estimates were in chronological order before i realized that two years after the launch would have been 1995. dying (talk) 22:59, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• i admittedly do not know enough about the subject to determine if "'dramatic symphony'" or "'dramatic legend'" are quotes that need to be attributed in the blurb. the terms seem to be used widely to describe the works, possibly because it appears that they were terms that berlioz himself used. (well, technically, it appears that he used the french equivalents.) is this an instance where it may be more appropriate to simply remove the quotation marks?
• i was unable to find a citation in the article for the statement that béatrice et bénédict "was a success at its premiere but did not enter the regular operatic repertoire". did i somehow miss it?

dying (talk) 22:59, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On the first point, I'd say unless there's a strong reason to change it, let it stand. I tend to agree with you on the second point, it's not clearly cited in the article and isn't cited in the Béatrice et Bénédict article, although it is certainly true. In the absence of a cite, though, I would suggest deleting that and substituting something else from the article lead, perhaps?--Wehwalt (talk) 02:16, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

absent any guidance from the nominator, i would suggest summarizing the second paragraph of the lead (which appears to have been completely skipped over in the blurb), and perhaps mentioning his career as a music critic (which seems prominent enough that we have a separate article about it). regarding the first point, i think the following summary might work.

Expected to enter medicine, Berlioz defied his family by taking up music, and won the Prix de Rome in 1830.

this sentence could be inserted right before the sentence covering berlioz's marriage to smithson. note that, if this is done, i think "Berlioz was married to" should be replaced with "He married" to avoid an awkward shift in tense and a second consecutive use of "Berlioz" as the start of a sentence. on the second point, i think the following sentence could be appended at the end of the blurb prose.

He also wrote musical journalism throughout much of his career.

replacing the sentence on béatrice et bénédict with these two sentences and making the suggested edits to the sentence on his marriage should result in a blurb 1007 characters in length. of course, i'd defer to the nominator if he has any other ideas. dying (talk) 23:59, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done, more or less.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:16, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• would it be useful to add a pixel-thick line between the two pictures, to more clearly show that the image consists of two pictures? i recognize that raising the issue might be a bit picky, though i thought i might mention it because it took me a bit longer than i'd care to admit to realize that the image was a composite. even now, the image remains a bit disorienting to me.
• would it be more appropriate to replace the wording "are paired cross-platform interchanges on" with "offer a paired cross-platform interchange between" or something similar? admittedly, i am neither an expert in railway interchange terminology nor one in singaporean english, but the dialect of english used in the "cross-platform interchange" article appears to use the singular "paired cross-platform interchange" when describing such an interchange between two stations. however, the article also uses the plural "cross-platform interchanges" when describing certain stations, so perhaps the wording "are both stations with cross-platform interchanges between" could also work.

i also wanted to note that i don't know what the character limits are for blurbs covering multiple featured articles, but i believe the most recent such blurb is this one, which has 1207 characters. the length of the current blurb for the mrt stations is decently shorter than that example, so i am assuming that there is no issue here. dying (talk) 23:59, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On the images, I don't know how to make such a line but would have no objection. As for the phrasing, considering the nominator wrote the blurb, I tend to assume that the choice of language was deliberate when using jargon and would not change it lightly. As for the character limit, I don't see why it should be more than for any other blurb, but if it gets by the people who worry about such things, that is fine..--Wehwalt (talk) 02:05, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:TFAP ... but that's for a submarine class and the two submarines in that class, so that seems okay. - Dank (push to talk) 15:05, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Correction, I see one more request for 3 articles at once (Oct 25 at TFAP) but it's the same thing: a ship class and its two ships. - Dank (push to talk) 15:15, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

wp:itnbalance, which generally ends up being dealt with by itn (though the guidelines for otd also mention it here

). on my screen, the mrt blurb takes up about four lines more than usual. below, i've produced a mock-up of roughly how the blurb would look like on the main page, along with how the previous blurb would look like, so that you can compare the lengths of the two.

Exit B of City Hall station (top) and Exit A of Raffles Place station

The City Hall and Raffles Place MRT stations are paired cross-platform interchanges on the North–South line (NSL) and East–West line (EWL) of the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system. Both are situated in the Downtown Core district: City Hall station is near landmarks such as the former City Hall, St Andrew's Cathedral and the Padang, while Raffles Place station serves Merlion Park, The Fullerton Hotel and the Asian Civilisations Museum. The stations were first announced in 1982. Constructing the tunnels between the City Hall and Raffles Place stations required the draining of the Singapore River. The stations opened on 12 December 1987 as part of the MRT extension to Outram Park station. Cross-platform transfers between the NSL and EWL began on 28 October 1989, ahead of the split of the MRT network into two lines. Both stations are designated Civil Defence shelters. City Hall station features a mural by Simon Wong which depicts government buildings in the area, while two murals at Raffles Place station by Lim Sew Yong and Thang Kiang How depict scenes of Singapore's history. (See City Hall MRT station and Raffles Place MRT station.)

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Painting by Gustave Courbet, 1850

Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic composer. His output includes orchestral works such as Harold in Italy, choral pieces including his Requiem and L'enfance du Christ, and works of hybrid genres such as the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and the "dramatic legend" La damnation de Faust. Expected to enter medicine, Berlioz defied his family by taking up music, and won the Prix de Rome in 1830. Berlioz married the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, who inspired his first major success, the Symphonie fantastique, in which an idealised depiction of her occurs throughout. His first opera, Benvenuto Cellini, was a failure. The second, the epic Les Troyens, was so large in scale that it was never staged in its entirety during his lifetime. Meeting only occasional success in France as a composer, Berlioz turned to conducting, in which he gained an international reputation. He also wrote musical journalism throughout much of his career. (Full article...)

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should we mention the unusual length of the mrt blurb at

wt:itn, so that they are aware of this potential issue? (interestingly, there's a monster nomination

at dyk right now that, if successful in its current form, will result in a hook featuring 29 articles simultaneously.)

on a completely different note, when i was reviewing the archives, i came across two different oddities.

• Has there been a discussion with Main Page people about TFA blurbs that take up significantly more space than usual? (Four lines might be seen as significant.) If not, then for the months I schedule, I would try to avoid that (even if we're mentioning two or three FAs ... and that still seems like a special case to me, not something that we want to do without a good reason.) - Dank (push to talk) 13:43, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, i remember one discussion when someone pointed out that the height of the image in one tfa blurb made the blurb take up a lot of vertical space on wide screens. interestingly, there was another discussion when someone else stated that the tfa blurb was too short. i can't think of any other relevant discussions offhand, but admittedly, i haven't really been paying attention to the issue. i think, usually, when balance is being discussed, tfa is generally assumed to reliably take up roughly the same amount of vertical space due to the character limits imposed.

  note: this blurb is scheduled to appear on the main page in about two hours. dying (talk) 21:59, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm guessing someone would have said something by now if they objected. I don't think it's a problem we'll run into in January. - Dank (push to talk) 23:59, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• this blurb appears to have passed in two arguments to {{TFAFULL}} back before the template was changed to take two arguments. (the second argument appears to have been an attempt to stylize the link text appearance, as is often done with standard wikilinks.) as a result, the second argument was ignored on the blurb's run date (when the blurb appeared correctly), but in the archives, the second argument is currently being interpreted as a featured topic (which doesn't exist).

• I removed the second link. Thanks for catching that. - Dank (push to talk) 13:43, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• this blurb appears to have had its instance of {{TFAFULL}} inadvertently removed before its run date, and no one appears to have restored it since.

• I left this one alone. - Dank (push to talk) 13:43, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

i don't know what our policy is regarding editing blurbs that have already run, so i thought i might mention my observations here. dying (talk) 11:00, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

i am fairly certain that the link to the "Golden Age" article is inappropriate, as that article focuses on a period in greek mythology, but i am not sure where best to retarget that link, assuming that there is an appropriate target. sources seem to agree that the pax romana is considered rome's golden age, but linking to this article doesn't appear to make sense in the context of the blurb, which talks about the restoration of such a golden age rather than the beginning of one. the "golden age (metaphor)" article might be appropriate, though it also references the pax romana as rome's golden age. dying (talk) 23:59, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Augustus meant it in both senses: both nebulously "making Rome great again" and bringing back (metaphorically, but in some transitive senses literally) the period of prosperity described in the poets when Saturn ruled over Latium, war was absent and human beings lived free from care).

We could change the link to go directly to the relevant section, which contains the famous passage from Eclogues 4 where Virgil says that Saturn's reign is coming back via Augustus's. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:06, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

oh! oh, wow, okay. i stand corrected. all this time, i was trying to find a historical golden age of rome, not realizing that augustus was referring to a mythological golden age.

UndercoverClassicist, targeting a specific section seems like a good idea, as that would make it more clear that the linked article is indeed the one intended to be linked. admittedly, though, i would have personally remained confused, because i had read virgil's eclogue as a comparison of the then-upcoming years of augustus's reign with the golden age of greek mythology, rather than a description of those years as an actual restoration of the mythological golden age. this might be my bias showing: i don't believe saturn ruled over latium, though i should have realized that romans visiting the temple of apollo palatinus may have believed that saturn did.

also, i think two other things through me off. first, the blurb refers to the golden age as rome's, while the "Golden Age" article refers to greek mythology. (i recognize that rome did adopt much of greek mythology, and presumably cronus was said to have ruled over the whole world, not just greece.) second, wikivoice is used to describe the time of augustus as a "restoration", suggesting that, from wikipedia's perspective, there was a historical golden age of rome that was being restored. i don't know if a rewriting is warranted, though i came up with something that might be helpful to others.

this wording avoids explicitly connecting the mythological golden age to rome, and also more clearly conveys that the description of the time of augustus as a restoration of the mythological period was augustus's idea. would using this wording be an improvement? dying (talk) 05:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's a perfectly good rephrase, though might be a bit overzealous: we quite happily write things like "the cultists were awaiting the

Second Coming of Christ" without implying that the first coming is a matter of fact, or "the poem looks forward to the return of King Arthur

" without suggesting that we do. Happy for you to make that change if you think there's a genuine chance of confusion, though.

Making the section link would also solve the Greek/Roman problem, as that section is explicitly about Roman mythology. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 06:53, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

oh, you're right about that, UndercoverClassicist; i hadn't considered that before. this might be my bias showing again: i assume that, on wikipedia, the shared context includes the presumption that there may not have been a first coming of christ, and that there may not have been a king arthur. i am, admittedly, much less knowledgeable about roman history, and hadn't realized until recently that the pax romana was considered rome's golden age. (i had been familiar with the pax romana, but didn't know if anything else could also be considered a golden age of rome.) that being said, i am easily confused, so i might not be a good benchmark to determine if a rewording is called for.

Wehwalt, i am currently assuming that you are not an undercover classicist yourself. if so, did this blurb suggest to you that there was a historical golden age of rome before the temple was built? dying (talk) 11:00, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a clue. Wehwalt (talk) 14:23, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

no worries, Wehwalt. in that case, i'll assume that a rewording isn't necessary. i've implemented UndercoverClassicist's suggestion to target the relevant section in the "Golden Age" article, but have left the actual wording as is. thanks, both of you! dying (talk) 05:59, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• the caption states that the boat pictured is "T3", while both the filename and the hull number visible in the image appear to identify the boat as "81T", and the article on t3 states that t3 was originally named "78 T". was 81t also named t3 at some point, or was the boat simply misidentified?
• would it be more appropriate to use a jpeg version of this image? i know that the use of tiff images appears to cause issues for some readers, as noted in this error report.

dying (talk) 23:59, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks dying. Well spotted. No idea how that one even happened. Fixed. I'll see what I can do about the file. The NH site offers a lower res jpg. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:22, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, changed the image to an actual jpg of T3 and reverted the caption. Not sure when the 81 T photo was added, I have a feeling the T3 one was on it earlier. Will have to investigate. Thanks again for your sharp eyes. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:28, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For the coords, this is part of a FT, but that isn't reflected in the table. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:39, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, Peacemaker67, for addressing these issues so quickly!

Bagumba, i know you are good with making sure that the blurbs render well on mobile devices, so i thought i might ping you to see if the use of any soft hyphens here is warranted, as i believe the thumbnail used in this blurb is wider than usual. dying (talk) 05:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dying: Actually, it's random for me depending on whether I happen to check the Main Page on a mobile the morning it goes live. I can't say I've been in the habit of screening Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow the day before. From what I can tell, I think a page like Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 15, 2023 can render slightly differently when its finally part of the Main Page (style sheets?). That said, the only potential issue seems to be "operational", though it starts on the line after the picture for me, for now, and on my phone, YMMV. Feel free to remind me the day before, if you need me to take a look at the "Tommorow" page then. Best. —Bagumba (talk) 06:57, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

oh, apologies if my comment had suggested that you check the main page for formatting issues daily, Bagumba. i had only meant to suggest that i noticed that you sometimes add soft hyphens when it seems appropriate, and that it is appreciated. please don't feel like you're obligated to check the main page daily because of my comment. in any case, i've preemptively added a soft hyphen to "operational" in response to your comment. thanks for the suggestion! dying (talk) 11:00, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• is the statement that the skyscraper was the second in the city to have a glass curtain wall sourced in the article? i assume it is true, but i am admittedly having trouble finding a proper citation. it is suggested in the article body by the statement that general bronze installed the curtain wall shortly after completing the one at the united nations secretariat building. however, the body doesn't seem to mention explicitly that the secretariat building was the first, or that no other glass curtain walls were installed in the meantime, perhaps by a party other than general bronze.
• for some reason, to me, the image looks slightly tilted. i looked at the history of this image, and realized that the current version is a rotated version of the original. interestingly, the orientation of the original version looks more proper to me. for example, if you examine the two flagpoles in the center of the lower half of the image, they are oriented vertically in the original image, but appear slightly tilted in the current version of the image. would it be more appropriate to use the original version of the image? courtesy pinging Beyond My Ken, who took the photo, uploaded it, and rotated it.

dying (talk) 22:59, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@dying, thanks for the commentary. I've added a citation for Lever House being the second glass-curtain-walled skyscraper in NYC, which is sourced to Vanity Fair. In the process, I ended up adding a few more details from a source that was published literally two days ago. (shrug)

As for the image, it may just be me, but I don't think the image is tilted. Rather, I think the image itself was taken with a curved lens and never corrected—the left edge (southeast corner) of the building is clearly slanted to the right, while the central edge (southeast corner) and right edge (northeast corner) of the building are a bit slightly slanted to the left. This may be compared with something like File:Lever house (15726775064).jpg, where all three corners are perfectly vertical. I assume File:Lever house (15726775064).jpg was touched-up in some way, though, but photo editing is not my forte. For what it's worth, I don't have a problem with Beyond My Ken's image; it seems all right to me. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recall doing any specific editing of this photo except for rotating it to what seemed to me to be the proper orientation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:20, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Epicgenius, it took me a while to realize it, but i think the reason why the orientation is bothering me is because, in the image, the building looks like a book standing upright on the edge of a tray, which is tilted enough that the book appears to be in danger of falling over. perhaps i should mention that my eyes are slightly misaligned, which means that i tend to be more aware of such things than most (though it also means that i generally cannot see autostereograms the way they were intended to be seen). the issue with the image is admittedly rather minor; i only thought to mention it because, to my surprise, the photo appeared to have been deliberately edited to be oriented this way. of course, if i'm the only one that sees the issue, then there's no need to adjust the picture on my account. thanks for addressing these points! dying (talk) 11:00, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

would it be helpful to crop the image so that it is more evident what the thumbnail depicts? (i recognize that the obvious joke here is to reply to me with "not my responsibility".) on my screen, the words look like a faint fuzzy dash. i admittedly couldn't tell at all from the thumbnail what it was trying to illustrate. dying (talk) 22:59, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

on it. commons changed the rules in such a way I can't overwrite the file anymore like I did last year, so let me request for perms before I do so

Will you call me?"
_{📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?"} 04:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Elias, the new version is much better. thanks for updating the file! dying (talk) 06:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• @Dying: Nice find with St. John's / Loyola College Prep; I added links to it. Also, if you have confirmed that the added image if public domain, then somebody should probably delete the other image as that was a fair use one I added when I was unable to find a PD one. (Should there be something added to the "alt" parameter as well?) BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:41, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

BeanieFan11, i admittedly do not know if there is any standard at tfa regarding the use of alt text. i think the vast majority of recent tfa blurbs do not have anything specifically written as alt text, so {{main page image/TFA}} ends up using the caption or the title as the alt text by default. i believe itn and dyk also generally do not provide custom alt text, though i am less familiar with the practice for the other sections of the main page. if there is any alt text that you wish to add, though, i assume that doing so should not be a problem.

by the way, i wanted to note that, although the current image of brocato appears to have been taken from a yearbook published in 1953, i am not certain if the photo was actually taken in 1953, as asserted by the infobox caption. i am not familiar with how photos for the yearbook were generally procured at baylor university at the time, though this source suggests that all the senior portraits for the 2024 yearbook have already been taken, during the past four months. dying (talk) 06:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dying: Would it be better for something like "Brocato, c. 1953" in the caption? I'm no expert at alt text, I am uncertain as to what I would put there. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:49, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

BeanieFan11, i think replacing the infobox caption with "Brocato, c. 1953" is a good idea. note that i did not add a caption to the blurb because i believe captions are generally not used for a standard portrait photo of the subject of a biographical blurb if the photo was taken during the subject's prime.

also, i'm admittedly no expert at alt text either. in any case, i can't recall anyone complaining about the custom alt text of a tfa blurb or the lack thereof, so i assume that there won't be any issues about it either way. dying (talk) 20:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

as the blurb discusses tolui's sacrifice of his own self rather than just something he had an interest in, would it be more appropriate to link to the "altruistic suicide" article rather than the "self-sacrifice" article? dying (talk) 23:59, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me dying. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:54, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

done. thanks, AirshipJungleman29! dying (talk) 06:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

this source suggests to me that "Surveying a Dying Sun" is the title of the artwork, rather than, for example, the title of a short story. if so, should the title be in italics, as per

Hm. We seem to give the titles of these cover artworks in "quotes" rather than italics, see e.g.

ISFDB also uses quotes here. Let's ping our expert on these magazines, Mike Christie, to make sure we get it right. TompaDompa (talk) 01:09, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

I'm not sure whether these should be italicized or not. Artworks such as Irises are italicized, but in bibliographic sources such as [1] (a reliable source and the most authoritative magazine bibliography there is) they are not italicized. I would lean towards not italicizing them myself based on what I've seen in other reference works but could be persuaded otherwise. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:05, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looking again at

MOS:ITALICS I think the relevant distinction given there is between major and minor works. These seem to me to be minor works, so quotes are appropriate. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:19, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

oh!

mos:minorwork considers them minor works.

i am not sure if we should be following the style used in reliable sources to determine whether, in this case, the title should be presented in italics or with quotation marks. although i am not familiar with any genre-specific standards in our science fiction articles, i would assume that the mos is generally overriding regarding questions of style. after all, placing this title in quotation marks is what confused me in the first place. dying (talk) 06:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Yes, MoS overrides RS styles.

MOS:VATITLE which further confirms what you say; it should be in italics, as it is in the original magazine, in fact. I've made the change to the article and the blurb. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 08:50, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

looks good. thanks, both of you! dying (talk) 08:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ravenpuff, regarding this edit and this edit, i am guessing that you made the same mistake as i did, and assumed that "Surveying a Dying Sun" was being used as the title of a short story, so i'm just pinging you to let you know about the discussion above. dying (talk) 11:59, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

dying, this was indeed the mistake I made. Thanks for letting me know and apologies for the slow reply! — RAVENPVFF · talk · 21:53, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

the text "governed by about 30 countries" links to the "Territorial claims in Antarctica" article, which appears to focus on the territorial claims and their history, and doesn't really seem to discuss anything about any governance currently present in antarctica. i couldn't find a suitable alternative article for the link to target; the "Antarctic Treaty System" article briefly touches upon the subject, but it is already linked elsewhere in the blurb. would it be more appropriate to simply have the text not link to any article? dying (talk) 23:59, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See what you think of what I've done there. Wehwalt (talk) 19:27, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wehwalt, i could easily be misunderstanding this, as the political situation in antarctica is rather complicated, but i think only seven sovereign states have territorial claims in antarctica: argentina, australia, chile, france, new zealand, norway, and the united kingdom. the blurb now appears to suggest that about thirty countries have territorial claims in the continent.

the politics section of the featured article mentions that twenty-nine countries "can participate in decision-making", which is what i am assuming the original blurb meant by "governing". these twenty-nine countries (listed here as having "[c]onsultative status") include all seven that have territorial claims, but also include five other countries that were original signatories to the treaty (if russia is considered an original signatory), and seventeen others that have conducted significant research on the continent. as a result, it seems to me that all countries with territorial claims are governing, but not all governing countries have territorial claims. this is why i had found the original link confusing and proposed to remove it: the link suggested to me that all thirty countries had territorial claims, when only seven of them did. dying (talk) 06:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Does any governance go on as a practical matter beyond the international treaty-making? It might be best to avoid the term.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:46, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wehwalt, i'm admittedly unsure what sort of actions would be considered "beyond the international treaty-making", but hadn't really questioned the use of the term "governed" because, to me, it seemed to be a reasonable use of the word, if defined liberally. if you're interested, the web site of the secretariat of the antarctic treaty has more details about the consultative meetings here. in any case, i like what you've now done with the blurb, so if no one else has any objections, i think this matter can be closed. dying (talk) 11:59, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sempronius [...] ordered them away from the site of the battle and [they] reached [...] Placentia without interference from the Carthaginians.

The important part is that Sempronius' force fought their way out of the Carthaginian encirclement, not what they subsequently did. Perhaps '10,000 under Sempronius maintained formation, fought their way out and reached the safety of Placenza'? Gog the Mild (talk) 19:07, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Amended as above. dying, could you let me know if you feel this is till insufficiently clear. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:20, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

oh, that rewording is much more clear, Gog. thanks for implementing it. by the way, did you mean to use the spelling "Placentia", or perhaps "Piacenza"? i couldn't find the spelling "Placenza" used in the article. dying (talk) 23:59, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lol. That was just me typing with my thumbs. Thanks for picking it up. Now corrected. Gog the Mild (talk) 00:57, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

haha, no worries. looks good. thanks, Gog. dying (talk) 01:59, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• the article states that "The Sun started reprinting the editorial annually at Christmas after 1924". does this mean that the annual republication only began in 1925?
• was o'hanlon's original letter actually first published in 1897? i know the text of the letter was published in 1897, but i am currently unable to find a publication of the letter itself before 1997, when it appeared on antiques roadshow. i don't know enough about u.s. copyright law to determine if publication of the text of the letter in 1897 means that the letter itself is also in the public domain, so i thought i might raise the issue here.

dying (talk) 23:59, 9 December 2023 (UTC) [copyedited header. dying (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)][reply]

I'm working on a rewrite. I'm not happy with the lead. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 00:44, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Eddie891, you probably know this, but if you make "substantial" changes to a FA it is good etiquette to ping in all of the FAC reviewers. Cheers. Gog the Mild (talk) 00:48, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Gog the Mild, just was referring to revising the lead, not the whole article. Didn't think that was substantial, though if someone disagrees by all means let me know. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:30, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Either way-- if it was created in 1887 and published 1997 or published in 1897 it's in the public domain. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 00:44, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

but it's not a great scan. Maybe we could just use some seasonal image? Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 00:45, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer for the blurb image to have direct relevance to the article. Sure, we can have a 19th century rendering of Santa Claus but I'd say the letter is more relevant. How about cropping the image of the printed version in the Sun to show a few key lines, I would suggest starting with "Yes, Virginia ..." through "... if there were no Santa Claus". Wehwalt (talk) 02:55, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How about File:Yes,Virginia,ThereIsASantaClausClipping (cropped).jpg? Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 16:29, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I put it in but the print is pretty microscopic in thumbnail. Maybe we can find a version of it that would look better. Wehwalt (talk) 00:12, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Wehwalt, maybe the headline part of this article? Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 15:55, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How will it look in thumbnail? Wehwalt (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

i am admittedly having trouble trying to determine which church the term "universal Church" is referring to. was it the roman catholic church, the latin church, or perhaps another church? also, since "govern the universal Church" is presented as a quote in the article, one could reword this for the blurb by simply mentioning the church explicitly in the blurb instead. dying (talk) 23:59, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tweaked, plus copy edited for clarity and to get it under the character limit. Unlimitedlead and dying, what do you think? Gog the Mild (talk) 09:53, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

looks good to me, Gog. by the way, i didn't cut the blurb down to 1025 characters during my copyedit because i was assuming that blurbs with no images are allowed to reach 1100 characters in length. however, if this standard has changed, please let me know. regardless, your abridgement looks fine, so i don't think there's any reason to revert it, unless the nominator has a preference for the earlier wording. dying (talk) 20:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. I think I was editing on autopilot. I thought it was 975-1,075 if there was no image, but cannot find this written anywhere. Dank could you rule on this? Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:28, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

no worries, Gog. funnily enough, i had based my current understanding of the character limits for blurbs without images on this comment. that was nearly two years ago, though, so i could have missed a change in the meantime. i'm happy to follow whatever Dank says the limit is. by the way, it might be useful to also mention it in the instructions for tfa/r. dying (talk) 21:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are quite right - as usual; no image gives us an additional 75 characters. Gog the Mild (talk) 01:14, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a preference on that. Wehwalt, do you? But I'd rather not advertise the "no image" option at TFAR. - Dank (push to talk) 22:17, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

oh, good point, Dank! i hadn't considered that. dying (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't either.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:22, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nor me. Gog the Mild (talk) 01:08, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your call, Dying. - Dank (push to talk) 23:23, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

oh! interesting question. admittedly, i think discussion regarding the upper limit for blurbs with no images may be largely theoretical, since only about 5% of all blurbs run without an image, and i believe most people end up saying what they want to say if given some undetermined amount of leeway. offhand, i can only remember encountering one blurb with no image that had more than 1075 characters before i copyedited it. (it had 1187 characters before i edited it down to 1098. now that i am looking at it again, i can get it down to 1075 without loss of significant information.)

since it seems like none of us has a preference regarding where to set a limit, and i worry that actually setting a limit may incentivize some editors to approach it, what if we simply did not have any official limit, and for the perhaps one or two blurbs that may present an issue every few years, we can deal with them individually? this is what we are already suggesting in the tfa/r instructions anyway. dying (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

it seems surprising to me that, back in 1977, news of the results of another game that had started five minutes earlier could reach the pitch so quickly that the players basically didn't do much during the last five minutes of the game. did the news really spread that quickly? a cursory google search brought up a few sources that stated that the game was delayed by fifteen minutes, which makes more sense to me, though i admittedly haven't completed a thorough survey of reliable sources. dying (talk) 23:59, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dying: good evening - the news spread quickly because it was broadcast on the scoreboards around the ground... and obviously they had heard the latest scores on the radio too - 1977 wasn't exactly the days of Morse code, horse-back messengers and semaphores . I think the 5 minutes vs 15 minutes thing is one of those stories that's been retold incorrectly so many times that the wrong version has taken hold in some people's imaginations - indeed, I got into a bit of a discussion about this with someone in the Coventry City Facebook group a few months ago. But as far as I can tell, virtually all sources from the actual time in question (for example this: [2]) as well as the Jim Brown book which has a match report in it, the delay in this one was definitely only 5 minutes. What's perhaps added to the confusion is that the later game in 1997, when Coventry once again escaped relegation at Sunderland's expense (it's discussed at the end of the article) really did have a 15-minute delay. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 00:31, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ha! that's true, Amakuru. i didn't quite think of 1977 as belonging to the days of morse, horse, and 'phores, but i did assume that it would have taken a minute or two to get the news up on the scoreboard, and maybe another minute before play died down. the fact that the article mentioned that the delay and the "unofficial truce" both lasted five minutes is what made me look further into this.

admittedly, i had assumed that the crowd was probably not following the sunderland game at the same time, though in retrospect, some of the fans may have brought in portable radios or something similar. i had thought that a difference of ten minutes may have been more than necessary, but the article cites a source in the northern echo that mentions a delay of about fifteen minutes, and a cursory search on google seemed to confirm it. in any case, your comment makes sense, and i'm glad that you have clearly done far more research into this than i have. thanks for the explanation! dying (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

dying (talk) 07:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

user:Tim riley? -- Ssilvers (talk) 13:47, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I note in passing that the original post seems to be conflating what are now considered "his best works" and his "successful period". It may be that they are indeed the same and the blurb needs tweaking. Or that they are not and that the blurb is an accurate statement. I leave this for wiser heads to rule on. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gog the Mild, you're right about this. by "messager's successful period", i had only meant to refer to the date range mentioned in the blurb. the article had not given me the impression that he had only one clear successful period, as his career had its ups and downs. i probably should have written something like "the period spanned by messager's successes" instead.

in any case, i had raised the issue because the range mentioned wasn't originally solely focused on dates. the span was originally "from 19th-century operetta [...] to 20th-century musical comedy". however, once the genres were removed, the date range was redundant, and the decision to highlight les p'tites michu as the start of the range no longer made sense to me. my proposal removed the redundancy, mentioned the genres of les p'tites michu and monsieur beaucaire to improve parallelism, and freed up space for another 30 or so characters. i don't think such a change is necessary, though. i think the blurb is currently accurate, even if the choice of using les p'tites michu to illustrate the start of the date range may seem a bit unusual. dying (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]