On 11/7/08, Aude audevivere@gmail.com wrote:
The way it works now for selecting Today's featured articles is to choose featured articles representing a variety of topics, with extra weight given to core topics. Meanwhile, we try not to overrepresent some topics (e.g. hurricanes, video games, roads) where we have numerous featured articles.
If we have multiple hurricane FAs in the fridge they can be shown on the same day, especially if the overall surplus is such that they might not otherwise appear.
Sandy may offer bonus points if said hurricanes have been christened with same name but in different years. :-)
Do you want hurricanes, video games, or roads on the main page nearly all the time?
Confession time: No, I don't savvy enough of the weather jargon to make the hurricane bits worth reading. I don't play video games but the articles can be interesting, albeit elastic in their in interpretation of "fair use" policy. Roads are cool.
Doesn't really matter what I think. Content is a reflection of self as much as the topic. People will write about what they want to write about.
The current situation with one featured article a day may encourage people to write featured articles on underrepresented topics, and core topics, if their articles appearing on the main page is a motivating factor for them.
I think the goal of this discussion is to figure out how to make each FA more likely to someday appear on the main page, regardless of other considerations.
Being closely related to another FA isn't a good reason to deny a certain article, but it is a sensible basis for featuring multiple articles in the same day.
—C.W.