This is a terrible, terrible, terribly idea.
The value in Wikipedia does not come from the core topics. It cannot. Our article on the United States of America will never be particularly valuable, because there are 17000 equivilents one can easily find. The glut of supply prevents it from attaining value. History of Elephants in Europe is immensly valuable because it's unique - it doesn't duplicate what already exists. A main page full of core topics would drastically undersell Wikipedia's value.
Brian
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 12:22 PM, Flameviper Velifang theflameysnake@yahoo.com wrote:
What makes me uncomfortable about this is that it's such a (for the most part) insignificant article being promoted to a FA and on the main page. Not only is it eerily short, its subject is incredibly obscure. Many of the C1K are still at start-class and B-class, yet people still get this to the front page. Not saying it's bad; a meaningless featured article is better than not having one at all, but I think it would be greatly beneficial to the project and our public perception if we were to put more stress on the core articles. When people say "Wikipedia is a bad resource", they're not talking about a social hygiene movie from 1946, they're talking about the 118 chemical elements, many of whose articles are B or Start.
(I was working on Lutetium; halfway through my research and before I could reformat the article I got indefinitely banned).
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