Gregory Maxwell wrote:
For some time now featured articles have been promoted at an average rate exceeding one per-day. The undeniable consequence of this is that unless the rate of FA promotions drops off most featured articles will *never* make it to the main page. I see no reason to expect the promotion rate to fall, an several arguments why we should expect it to increase.
Yet, being featured on the main page is still cited by users as a big motivator behind their work on featured articles.
There is a simple measure that we could take which would substantially reduce this gap: We could regularlly run two featured articles on the main page like we are doing today.
Maybe we could rotate them twice per day, giving each FA 12 hours on the main page. Then we wouldn't be increasing the amount of clutter there. The first screenful is the most important thing, many readers will never scroll down when they visit that page.
Obviously the recent double feature was necessary for neutrality, but we don't need to extend that precedent to cases where neutrality does not apply.
-- Tim Starling