Wikipedia:Today's featured article oddities

The "Today's Featured Article" (TFA) section first appeared on the main page on February 22, 2004, featuring the article Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Rather than the full article being displayed on the main page, a summary (often described as a "blurb") appears, with a link to the full article appearing in bold. To start with, the rotation of TFAs was done by updating {{Feature}}. The selection did not change promptly at midnight UTC as it now does, and sometimes TFAs would appear for more or less than 24 hours.

The system of using daily templates, prepared in advance and automatically transcluded onto the main page, began on August 7, 2004. Since then, things have been a little more regular.

The general rules for the TFA section are these: only featured articles appear; there is only one TFA per day; each one is displayed for 24 hours; and only one image accompanies the blurb. Until a change in early 2017, there was also an additional rule that no FA could appear more than once as TFA. Most of the time the rules have been followed ... This is a list of times when something a bit different, intentionally or otherwise, has happened in the TFA section.

Shortcuts

Featured content:

Featured article candidates (FAC):

Featured article review (FAR):

Today's featured article (TFA):

Featured article tools:

The ones with two featured articles in a day

On November 4, 2008, the date of the 2008 United States presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain shared the TFA slot. This is the only time so far that two TFAs have appeared at the same time with separate blurbs. Some tweaks were made to randomize whether McCain or Obama appeared at the top of the TFA box.
On October 31, 2010, Grace Sherwood appeared until 12:28 UTC, at which point it was replaced by Tropical Storm Chantal (2001) because of copyvio/plagiarism concerns. Grace Sherwood was demoted from FA status on December 12, 2010, re-promoted to FA status on September 9, 2013 and re-appeared as TFA on July 10, 2017.
On February 9, 2012, Frederick Russell Burnham appeared until 17:27 UTC, at which point it was replaced by Hurricane Nate (2005) because of similar concerns. Frederick Russell Burnham was demoted from FA status on July 12, 2012.
On February 4, 2021, Nine Inch Nails live performances was replaced by a re-run of Pacific swift due to concerns about the article's sourcing and overall quality.
On February 14, 2021, Heaven Upside Down was replaced by M113 armoured personnel carriers in Australian service due to concerns about tone deafness following sexual abuse allegations against Marilyn Manson.
On September 14, 2023, Lisa Nowak was replaced by Love Story (Taylor Swift song) because it was felt inappropriate for the main page. Love Story remained as TFA for the following day.

The ones when multiple featured articles ran in the same blurb

On March 25, 2013, three related featured articles (Blockhaus d'Éperlecques, La Coupole and the Fortress of Mimoyecques) appeared in the same blurb. The coding of the main page was amended to make the section header plural for the day.
On September 26, 2013, identical twin brothers Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin (born September 26, 1980) appeared in the same blurb.
On April 12, 2014, the constellations Triangulum and Triangulum Australe shared the TFA blurb. Two subpages were used to randomise which one appeared first in the blurb.
On August 16, 2015, the constellations Corona Borealis and Corona Australis shared the TFA blurb.
For September 7, 2015, two Commonwealth Battle of Britain pilots – Caesar Hull (Southern Rhodesia) and Paterson Hughes (Australia), both killed over London on that date in 1940 – shared the TFA blurb.
On December 12, 2023, the MRT interchange stations City Hall and Raffles Place shared the TFA blurb.

The ones with featured articles that have appeared twice

Barack Obama's article appeared on August 18, 2004 and was repeated on November 4, 2008 (to mark the 2008 US Presidential election, as noted above). The archived discussion is here.
In January 2012, Wikipedia was suspended for 24 hours as part of a co-ordinated protest against the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The English Wikipedia blackout began at midnight Eastern Time (05:00 UTC) on January 18. One article, Nick Drake, was TFA either side of the blackout on January 18 (5 hours) and on January 19 (19 hours). The article was TFA for a total of 24 hours but this was spread across two days. (See this discussion.)
Transit of Venus appeared on May 7, 2005 and June 5, 2012; the second appearance marked the last transit of Venus in the 21st century, the next one not occurring until 10–11 December 2117.
Gough Whitlam appeared on March 25, 2004 and November 5, 2014; the second appearance marked Whitlam's memorial service after his death in October 2014 at the age of 98.
Pluto first appeared on October 7, 2007, and again on July 14, 2015 to mark the visit to Pluto of the New Horizons space probe.

A discussion in 2017 relaxed the rule about TFAs appearing for a second time. Following this, Rosetta Stone (which had first appeared on September 14, 2010) was re-featured on March 18, 2017.

The ones with something other than a featured article in the TFA slot

For Wikipedia's 10th birthday, on January 15, 2011, the TFA slot displayed a featured list (Moons of Saturn), a featured topic (Wikipedia:Featured topics/Guadalcanal Campaign) and a featured sound (File:01 - Vivaldi Spring mvt 1 Allegro - John Harrison violin.ogg)
On April 1, 2005, User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder appeared as the TFA (one of the options that had been supported in a long discussion about the options) – but only for one minute before the admin changing the TFA self-reverted.

The one when TFA was late

On November 26, 2011, no TFA had been scheduled by Raul654 (FA director) or Dabomb87 (his TFA delegate). After some discussion at Talk:Main Page and 22 minutes of blankness, Wehwalt took a non-specific date nomination from WP:TFAR and scheduled it. Until 2020, an emergency list of pre-prepared blurbs was kept, in case the TFA coordinators failed to schedule something.

The one with the shortest blurb

On April 1, 2013, the hook for the featured article consisted of simply the character "?" (albeit a very large "?"), referring to the Indonesian film ?.

The ones with the most votes

History of Gibraltar prompted a vigorous discussion at the TFA requests pages when it was nominated for July 13, 2013, but the discussion was closed with what was at the time the most votes in support that anyone can remember (31–4 in favor of running it).
Fuck also prompted another lively discussion at TFAR before it was scheduled for March 1, 2014. The discussion set a new record for the most votes (52–25 in support of running it, excluding neutrals and votes conditional on its appearance on a specifically relevant date rather than a non-specific date).
If discussions are measured by page size rather than number of votes or !votes, then we get:
- Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties (196,298 bytes)
- Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Fuck (film) (128,663 bytes)
- Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/History of Gibraltar (60,339 bytes)
- Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo (30,007 bytes covering discussions in 2011 and 2012)

The ones with the most points

For many years, until April 2014, the requests page used a points system to help indicate which articles were more deserving of appearing as TFA in the event of competition for the same date or similar articles being nominated. (Final version of the system) Factors used included: how long it had been since the article's promotion (with articles that had been promoted 1 or 2+ years ago gaining points); whether the article was from a section at WP:FA with <50 articles; whether it was a "vital article"; whether similar articles had run in the recent past (which could mean bonuses or penalties, depending on timing); whether it would be the author's first TFA; and to mark anniversaries (with various bonus points for multiples of 10 or 25).
The highest score under this system, as far as anyone can remember, was eleven points:
- Richard Nixon (at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Richard Nixon): centennial of birth (6), level 4 vital article (4), and promoted over one year previously (1);
- Richard Wagner (at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Richard Wagner): bicentenary of birth (6), level 4 vital article (4), and nominator's first TFA appearance (1).
- John Calvin (nomination in history) Quincentennial of birth (6) level 4 vital article (4), and promoted over one year previously (1);
Had the points system still been in operation, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/John A. Macdonald would have set a new record with twelve points: bicentenary of birth (6), level 4 vital article (4) and promoted over two years previously (2).

The ones with the most pictures in the blurb

Middle Ages, which was TFA on September 12, 2013, had not one but five accompanying images, each illustrating different aspects of the topic. Which image a reader saw at any particular time was governed by {{random subpage}}, assisted by the main page's being purged every 15 minutes by a bot.
Metalloid, which was TFA for October 4, 2014, had six different images, one for each of the main metalloids. Random subpages were used to vary which metalloid image was displayed.
Elizabeth II, which was TFA on September 19, 2022, had a total of ten accompanying images, from 1943 to 2015, each from a different part of her life. The image that was shown was determined by the Random item template.

The ones with a theme spread over several days

April 5–12, 2011, saw a series starting with the letter P: Polyozellus, Philitas of Cos, Phan Dinh Phung, The Pit and the Pendulum, Pithole, Populous: The Beginning, Parkinson's disease and culminating in Pattern Recognition.
February 17–20, 2013, saw TFAs on a theme of Eagles: Eagle (a British comic); the White-bellied Sea Eagle; the Turban Head eagle (an American gold coin); and HMS Eagle (a British aircraft carrier). "Picture of the Day" joined in the fun with a picture of an eagle and the word "eagle" in three other pictures over the four days: see Wikipedia:Picture of the day/February 2013.
October 25–29, 2013, saw TFAs on a theme of George: Georges Bizet (French composer); George Jones (RAAF officer); George Went Hensley (American Pentecostal minister); George Herriman (American cartoonist); Georgette Heyer (British novelist). Two (Bizet and Herriman) were nominated at WP:TFAR and Bencherlite (TFA coordinator at the time) then filled in the gaps, as explained here. "Picture of the Day" joined in the fun with pictures of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, Saint George Palace and George Juskalian on the last three days: see Wikipedia:Picture of the day/October 2013.
February 22, 2014, the tenth anniversary of TFA, saw Tropical Depression Ten as the apt article of the day. It was the lowest "card" of a five-card TFA sequence: 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace (a "Broadway" in poker). The remaining articles were: the Australian cricketer Jack Marsh; Olga Constantinovna of Russia (Queen of the Hellenes); The King and I (a Broadway musical by Rogers and Hammerstein); and John F. Bolt, an American fighter pilot who achieved "ace" status in two wars. Nobody noticed the sequence...
The first seven days of October 2014 featured articles that had every word in their titles beginning with "M": Mucho Macho Man, Madeline Montalban, Meerkat Manor, Metalloid, Mom & Me & Mom, Mascarene martin and Marquee Moon.
The last five days of 2014, which were the last five TFAs scheduled by Bencherlite, counted down to 2015 and the new TFA coordinators taking over: Fifth Test, 1948 Ashes series; Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; Three Beauties of the Present Day; Thief II: The Metal Age; and Fijación Oral, Vol. 1.
The last four days of June 2015, scheduled by Crisco 1492, began with the letters E (Effects of Hurricane Georges in Louisiana), E (Edmontosaurus), R (Robin Friday), and F (Fantastic Novels). As such, when the June 30th TFA was on the main page, the initials of the four TFAs mentioned on the main page spelled "FREE".
5-10 October 2024 saw a running theme of birds, with River Parrett, Markham's storm petrel (the only bird in the set), Thunderbirds, Tony Hawk's Underground, The Birds (Alexander McQueen collection) and To Kill a Mockingbird.

The ones that ran on April Fools' Day

In some years, parts of the Main Page – including TFA – mark April Fools' Day:

2004: Byzantine Empire (A serious article and blurb)
2005: Nintendo Entertainment System (After a long discussion about what should run, User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder appeared for one minute on the Main Page.)
2006: Spoo (The article was deleted on January 12, 2019, and replaced with a disambiguation page, with the page history restored to Spoo (food).)
2007: George Washington (inventor)
2008: Ima Hogg
2009: Museum of Bad Art
2010: Wife selling (English custom)
2011: Cock Lane ghost
2012: Pigeon photography
2013: ? (film)
2014: Disco Demolition Night
2015: Invisible rail
2016: Gregor MacGregor
2017: Nominative determinism
2018: RAF Uxbridge (A serious article and blurb, to mark the 100th anniversary of the military base coming under the control of the Royal Air Force)
2019: Siege of Aiguillon (A serious article and blurb, to mark the 673rd anniversary of the siege's beginning)
2020: German battleship Tirpitz (A serious article and blurb, to mark the 81st anniversary of the ship's launch)
2021: Groundhog Day (film)
2022: Coropuna (A serious article and blurb)
2023: Boring Lava Field
2024: Order of Brothelyngham