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.
By doing so we could also have more flexibility in our choices. When two interesting things fall on a single day, we could possibly run both. We could run similar articles for comparison, or dramatically different articles for contrasting.
With the order randomization that we're using for today's two articles we could compare differential click through rates and learn more about what people will click on. We could offer readers additional choices. To me this seems like a lot of advantages, at the cost of a little less attention on a single article.
(When we're done with this discussion we could move onto the fact that both of today's articles are hard-full-protected and how nice it would be if we were using revision flagging with display-flagged instead...)
2008/11/4 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
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.
This was suggested before (on this mailing list, I think) and people didn't seem keen (I like the idea, personally). I remember someone pointing out that at the current rate even with 2 articles a day we would never catch up, but that's not a reason not to try - even if we accept we can't feature every FA, we can still try and feature as many as possible.
By doing so we could also have more flexibility in our choices. When two interesting things fall on a single day, we could possibly run both. We could run similar articles for comparison, or dramatically different articles for contrasting.
My idea last time was to split FAs into two categories (I think I suggested pop culture articles and more academic articles, although someone else suggested bios and non-bios which might be better - easier to define, certainly) and take one from each, that way people are more likely to find an FA they are interested in. An exception could obviously be made when they are topical articles or interesting pairs.
With the order randomization that we're using for today's two articles we could compare differential click through rates and learn more about what people will click on. We could offer readers additional choices. To me this seems like a lot of advantages, at the cost of a little less attention on a single article.
I didn't realise it was randomised, that's clever! I'd assumed it was alphabetical by surname (which is how it displayed for me for the first time - I've refreshed now and seen it switch, very clever indeed!). Are we gathering the appropriate stats at the moment or was that just an idea for the future (it's a good idea, either way)?
(When we're done with this discussion we could move onto the fact that both of today's articles are hard-full-protected and how nice it would be if we were using revision flagging with display-flagged instead...)
It was unavoidable in this case - flagged revs would certainly have been a better solution. We'll get there eventually!
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 1:44 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
would never catch up, but that's not a reason not to try - even if we accept we can't feature every FA, we can still try and feature as many as possible.
Right. And even if we'd catch up with today's rate, tomorrow might still be faster. A second article would *double* the coverage. I think thats a pretty good return on inches of screen space.
My idea last time was to split FAs into two categories (I think I suggested pop culture articles and more academic articles, although someone else suggested bios and non-bios which might be better - easier to define, certainly) and take one from each, that way people are more likely to find an FA they are interested in. An exception could obviously be made when they are topical articles or interesting pairs.
Clustering is an interesting idea. I'd support whatever. I'd especially support mixing it up and trying different things.
I didn't realise it was randomised, that's clever! I'd assumed it was alphabetical by surname (which is how it displayed for me for the first time - I've refreshed now and seen it switch, very clever indeed!). Are we gathering the appropriate stats at the moment or was that just an idea for the future (it's a good idea, either way)?
We can tell which one people click on, though we can't tell which order they were when they clicked. (that could be done, though, I suppose)
The reordering code was something I did for the WMF board elections two-ish years ago. I wasn't aware of the decision to run two articles until it was already live, then add in the time it took for an EnWP admin bold enough to make the change. Unfortunately the site JS is cached, so not everyone will see the random order. Fortunately (for once) IE and Firefox have dumb caching which won't preserve the cache across sessions, so I expect most of the public will get the random ordering.
(When we're done with this discussion we could move onto the fact that both of today's articles are hard-full-protected and how nice it would be if we were using revision flagging with display-flagged instead...)
It was unavoidable in this case - flagged revs would certainly have been a better solution. We'll get there eventually!
I'd like to see a consensus demonstrated that flagged revs would have been better here because even past proposals to use them strictly as a replacement for protection have come under fire.
(When we're done with this discussion we could move onto the fact that both of today's articles are hard-full-protected and how nice it would be if we were using revision flagging with display-flagged instead...)
It was unavoidable in this case - flagged revs would certainly have been a better solution. We'll get there eventually!
I'd like to see a consensus demonstrated that flagged revs would have been better here because even past proposals to use them strictly as a replacement for protection have come under fire.
I know... I've never understood that. I'm not sure the people doing the firing actually understood the proposal.
2008/11/4 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
I know... I've never understood that. I'm not sure the people doing the firing actually understood the proposal.
Oh we understand it we just don't trust it.
2008/11/4 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/11/4 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
I know... I've never understood that. I'm not sure the people doing the firing actually understood the proposal.
Oh we understand it we just don't trust it.
It's a piece of code on a server, what's not to trust? I presume it's not the actual software you distrust, so what is it?
On 11/4/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It's a piece of code on a server, what's not to trust? I presume it's not the actual software you distrust, so what is it?
The operator, surely.
—C.W.
(I know we're rather off-topic here, but I really would like to understand this.)
2008/11/4 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
On 11/4/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It's a piece of code on a server, what's not to trust? I presume it's not the actual software you distrust, so what is it?
The operator, surely.
Who do you mean by the operator? The people changing whether the flagged or latest version is shown by default? The people doing the flagging? They'll be guided by policy just as in everything else and that policy can be made strictly more open than the current protection policy, so what's the problem?
On 11/4/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Who do you mean by the operator? The people changing whether the flagged or latest version is shown by default? The people doing the flagging?
The former should not be changing on a regular basis (and certainly not on a per-article basis), so probably the latter.
They'll be guided by policy just as in everything else and that policy can be made strictly more open than the current protection policy, so what's the problem?
One need not look too far to see that current protection policy is disregarded more often than not. Part of it might depend on whether versions can be unflagged and flag-wars can erupt, or on what sort of policy is adopted and whether anyone pays it any mind.
There may be a de facto (or even de jure) variation of standards for deciding whether a version should be flagged/sighted/stable/cabal-approved/etc. If so, if "these articles must be free of any unsourced sentences" but "those articles need only be free of obvious vandalism" we'll really be no better off than now.
These are the known unknowns but there may be more. I haven't played around with it all that much, not in English anyway. I'll install it on my site and get back to you on this.
—C.W.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 2:11 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I'd like to see a consensus demonstrated that flagged revs would have been better here because even past proposals to use them strictly as a replacement for protection have come under fire.
I know... I've never understood that. I'm not sure the people doing the firing actually understood the proposal.
It's the old "slippery slope" argument.
and my not very charitable take on it:
It's completely valid: I expect that if we roll out flagging as a replacement for protection, then we'll discover that it isn't evil, that it doesn't stop contributions, that it doesn't make Wikipedia stale, and that it improves quality, thus smashing the empty but compelling arguments being made against it. Or we won't but we'll come up with something even better to try, sparking a chain of iterative improvement.
In any case, after rolling it out we will have knowledge, experience, and measurements which we simply do not today. Those factors will drive our decisions rather than the fear, speculation, uninformed laziness, and resistance to change which dominate the discussions today.
Resistance to change is part of human nature. We shouldn't be shocked to see it, even when it results in illogical decision making processes
.
On 11/4/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
In any case, after rolling it out we will have knowledge, experience, and measurements which we simply do not today. Those factors will drive our decisions rather than the fear, speculation, uninformed laziness, and resistance to change which dominate the discussions today.
By all means let's give it a try. There might ultimately be nothing to gain from it, but there isn't much left to lose either.
But like I've been trying to say I doubt anyone will be evaluating the software much, probably to focus more on how the community behaves with it.
Harder to program, I know.
—C.W.
2008/11/4 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
On 11/4/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
In any case, after rolling it out we will have knowledge, experience, and measurements which we simply do not today. Those factors will drive our decisions rather than the fear, speculation, uninformed laziness, and resistance to change which dominate the discussions today.
By all means let's give it a try. There might ultimately be nothing to gain from it, but there isn't much left to lose either.
But like I've been trying to say I doubt anyone will be evaluating the software much, probably to focus more on how the community behaves with it.
Didn't roll it out on de? I seem to recall their edit rate dropped a bit then they turned it of then back on and well I'm not sure we've heard from them since?
How about some sort of special, one day a week where it happens every Friday. that way it will keep must of the people against it happy(ish) as well.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 3:35 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Didn't roll it out on de? I seem to recall their edit rate dropped a bit then they turned it of then back on and well I'm not sure we've heard from them since?
They had a poll and decided to keep it.
It's on right now, though I had to hit random page a good two dozen times or so before hitting a page where the flagged revision wasn't the most current.
They backed off some of the more noisy UI features, so you mostly don't see it there, now. It's pretty transparent. ::shrugs::
2008/11/4 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 3:35 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Didn't roll it out on de? I seem to recall their edit rate dropped a bit then they turned it of then back on and well I'm not sure we've heard from them since?
They had a poll and decided to keep it.
With what settings?
On Nov 4, 2008, at 3:12 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
It's completely valid: I expect that if we roll out flagging as a replacement for protection, then we'll discover that it isn't evil, that it doesn't stop contributions, that it doesn't make Wikipedia stale, and that it improves quality, thus smashing the empty but compelling arguments being made against it. Or we won't but we'll come up with something even better to try, sparking a chain of iterative improvement.
In any case, after rolling it out we will have knowledge, experience, and measurements which we simply do not today. Those factors will drive our decisions rather than the fear, speculation, uninformed laziness, and resistance to change which dominate the discussions today.
Which gets to one of the root problems on En these days - it is impossible to get a global consensus for anything because of the wide prevalence of views that are either very, very poorly worked out or are substantially at odds with fundamental Wikipedia policies. Which is turning policy formation into an adversarial process, and making large decisions get made through intrigue and maneuvering rather than any sort of rational process.
I can't wait to see the CC-BY-SA argument on en.
-Phil
2008/11/4 Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com:
I can't wait to see the CC-BY-SA argument on en.
Haven't seen much wikipedia based opposition yet. The opposition I've seen so far was offsite and mostly comes from FSF supporters who trust CC less than I do.
On 11/4/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
(When we're done with this discussion we could move onto the fact that both of today's articles are hard-full-protected and how nice it would be if we were using revision flagging with display-flagged instead...)
This makes me wonder how much time was spent perfecting the angry-salad editnotices which nobody will actually see.
This may prove that power is not in the eye of the beholder, or that ignorance truly is bliss.
—C.W.
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.
I like this proposal, although more from the perspective of information-dissemination than motivating FA workers. Featuring things on the main page, both with DYK and the daily featured article, is a way of getting articles read by more people than would've otherwise read them... but the daily FA process is extremely lumpy in that respect in that a tiny percentage of articles get huge exposure, whereas most never do. Having two daily featured articles will hopefully give slightly less (but still very large) exposure to twice as many articles, a step in the right direction. I'd personally even support 3-5 per day in different sections (daily featured biography, etc.), but that's probably not going to happen short-term so I'm not going to push for it. =]
-Mark
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 10:33 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2008_main_page_redesign_proposal is currently in progress.
Go voice your thoughts there.
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
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.
That would result in people that only check the front page once a day (which is probably a very large number of people) missing half the featured articles. It would be roughly equivalent to having the featured article chosen at random from two options a day each time the page is loaded. I think that would detract from the concept a daily FA.
On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 9:51 AM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
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.
Or just randomly display one? (Can be done via JS, so no caching interaction)
Every 12 hours would mean that some geographies would mostly see one, others the other. I don't think that is desirable.
On 11/7/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Or just randomly display one? (Can be done via JS, so no caching interaction)
What would be shown for those not using javascript? Hopefully not a blank space :-)
I guess the sensible default would have to be both articles but with shorter excerpts so they don't stretch the layout too much.
Every 12 hours would mean that some geographies would mostly see one, others the other. I don't think that is desirable.
If we are gaining more featured articles than days I think the best solution would be to continue related articles to feature together. I think the novelty of this model would create enough targeted motivation to improve certain articles where a natural rivalry or yin-and-yang perception exists, even if it stems from an elaborate inside joke (examples upon request).
This would at least avoid over-depleting the surplus with no rhyme or reason (by featuring two every day with no commonality at all).
—C.W.
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. Do you want hurricanes, video games, or roads on the main page nearly all the time?
With the way it works now, if I write a bunch of featured articles on the same topic, then I do so, well aware that they won't all go on the main page. Or if I write a FA about a hurricane, I do so knowing it probably won't be on the main page. Also, some are rather short and perhaps not suitable as TFA. (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Route_373)
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.
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.
2008/11/7 Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org:
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.
In some ways, I think the double-header can be better than alternating FAs. If the blurbs are kept short, and the layout is set up correctly, it looks really quite tidy; I only saw the main page once or twice on the 4th, but as I recall it looked clear and neat.
That said, it really relies on the two articles being related. [[Delhi]] and [[London]] would make for a coherent section; [[Delhi]] and [[Henry VIII of England]] wouldn't. For an unrelated pair, you'd probably have to seperate it out into two adjacent sections.
When we discussed double-FAs before, we were thinking of two unrelated topics - perhaps picking related pairs would be a good way forward, instead? Articles on two linked people, two battles, two chemical elements, two animals, two cities...
On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 5:48 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
When we discussed double-FAs before, we were thinking of two unrelated topics - perhaps picking related pairs would be a good way forward, instead? Articles on two linked people, two battles, two chemical elements, two animals, two cities...
The trouble with this approach is what to do with groups that do not neatly divide into two. For example, it would be bizarre to feature two of the three Cappadocian Fathers (say, to feature Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil the Great, but to leave off Gregory of Nyssa). Featuring one of the three wouldn't be peculiar in the slightest, but to feature two would be.
This isn't necessarily a huge problem, but it's worth considering whether presenting things in pairs might have the potential to mislead.
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 5:33 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com 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.
Do we have a graph indicating no. of FA's over time? Is the rate increasing?
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.
By doing so we could also have more flexibility in our choices. When two interesting things fall on a single day, we could possibly run both. We could run similar articles for comparison, or dramatically different articles for contrasting.
With the order randomization that we're using for today's two articles we could compare differential click through rates and learn more about what people will click on. We could offer readers additional choices.
Is there a technical description of this order randomisation functionality? It look like it is simply a class "dshuf" and a JavaScript function.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Today%27s_featured_artic... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.js&diff=24955...
p.s. there have been some changes to the dshuf function:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki%3ACommon.js&diff=249...
To me this seems like a lot of advantages, at the cost of a little less attention on a single article.
Browser window real-estate is precious. Two simultaneously displayed FAs means less space a blurb for each, and a more "busy" look. Two alternatives come to mind; are either of these possible with the order randomisation code.
1. have more than one FA per day, only display one per mainpage load, and balance them out so each obtains similar number of pageviews on the main page. A crude way of doing this would be to use {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} or {{NUMBEROFEDITS}} mod <number of FAs> to select which one is going to be displayed, and redirect the browser to different main pages so that they are cached effectively.
AJAX could be used to load the next FA for the day after a reasonable interval. A "view next FA" button could give the same functionality to those with JavaScript disabled.
2. use CSS/JS to display a number of FAs in tabs in the same spot where the FA currently resides. A similar approach to dshuf could be used to ensure that each FA tab is given roughly the same amount of pageviews throughout the day.
Both approaches allow more than 2 FAs per day, which means we can "catch up" with the backlog of pages that need to hit the front page.
-- John Vandenberg
John Vandenberg wrote:
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 5:33 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com 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.
Do we have a graph indicating no. of FA's over time? Is the rate increasing?
There's some numbers here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Featured_...
The rate of new FAs increased through 2007, but is about the same per month in 2008 as in 2007 (or even slightly lower). However that rate is still about 60 per month, or about twice as many new FAs per month as featured FAs that month. Featuring two articles per day wouldn't clear the backlog, but would at least keep it approximately constant. =]
-Mark
On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 7:12 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
John Vandenberg wrote:
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 5:33 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com
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.
Do we have a graph indicating no. of FA's over time? Is the rate
increasing?
There's some numbers here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Featured_...
The rate of new FAs increased through 2007, but is about the same per month in 2008 as in 2007 (or even slightly lower). However that rate is still about 60 per month, or about twice as many new FAs per month as featured FAs that month. Featuring two articles per day wouldn't clear the backlog, but would at least keep it approximately constant. =]
There is also a statistics page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_statistics
That page shows the change in FAs per month (taking into account the number of demotions through the featured article review process), though for the purposes of looking at the number of pages in the queue for the main page, it is the number of new FAs that matters. It would also help to know what the current backlog is.
That list is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles_that_haven%27t_been...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles_that_haven%27t_been_on_the_Main_Page
Though it hasn't been updated since 1 September 2008 (as it says on the page).
And the process for selecting the TFA is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today%27s_featured_article/requests
Apologies if this has all been mentioned earlier. I've only just joined the mailing list.
The last time this came up on-wiki, I said something along the lines of trying to encourage directing more people towards portals or the featured content portal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Featured_content
But that is, admittedly, a very different reading experience to the Main Page, and anything other than the Main Page will get far less click-throughs. But there must be *some* way to showcase our best articles other than having various lists. Possibly the *other* ways of distributing the TFA (the RSS feed and the e-mail feed) could be expanded with less worries about screen space.
How much are those distributions methods (e-mail, RSS) used by the public?
For past discussions on the FA page queue, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/reque...
The really big debate (leading to the reform of the request page) was at "Discontinuing the use of this page", though this was all back in May 2007, so things may have changed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/reque...
Some examples of sections in that discussion, or following that discussion, are:
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/reque...
"Make it clear they can't all be TFAed"
Marskell said: "The fact is that if we don't do some version of two per day we have to accept that close to 50% of promotions are never going to make it to the main page. The stats speak for themselves: net FAC increase is 35 to 40, while FAR consistently removes 15 to 20; that's a gross of about 55 per month, and thus 25 surplus." Marskell 12:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/reque...
"Some more thoughts"
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/reque...
"Promote existing pages to increase exposure of featured content"
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/reque...
What is the second most-visited Wikipedia page"
Of particular note, I think, is what Sandy said at one point (agreeing with Marskell):
"Not all FAs will appear on the main page. Period. Are people really writing FAs for that purpose? Weird — I would really think a number one rank on Google would do the trick [...]" SandyGeorgia 15:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
That is a fair point, though I still think that imaginatively using *all* the FA content we have in multiple ways (repackaging it according to the audience), rather than having an excessive focus on the Main Page, would help to raise the profile of Wikipedia's best articles still further.
Carcharoth
PS. Sorry if more than one post gets through - a mix-up between gmail and googlemail domains.