Forum:CT:Changing the display of FAs on the main page

I would like to propose a change to the way we display featured articles on the Main Page. We’ve always displayed them in the format of Featured Article of the Week where, in theory, there would be a new FA on the main page every Sunday. Unfortunately, that has not been true in the last few years, and it has never been less true than it is right now. In the last year, we’ve had a grand total of 6 featured articles on the main page. That means articles have spent an average of 2 months on the main page, 8 times more than they’re meant to spend. What I’m getting at isn’t about fairness, as in “it’s not fair that they’re on for so long but mine was only on for a week!,” but rather the practicality of keeping the current system in place when we rarely have new FAs.

What I would propose is ditching the weekly format and going to a randomized FA format, similar to what we do with GAs&mdash;only unlike GAs, we’d still display the intro, the image, etc. What this does is gives us variety. Every time you land on the main page, there will be a different FA. That doesn’t particularly matter for us since we’re always here on the wiki, but it is good for SEO&mdash;having lots of links and different links for web crawlers to find&mdash;and for people who might be interested in the wiki.

We currently have the page Star Wars Fanon:Random featured article. This is how it would work on the main page. All of the FA intros and (if available) images would be added to that with the randomizing code. That will allow the FA that’s displayed to rotate on the main page.

So to recap, this moves us off the FA of the Week formatting and therefore gives us more variety in terms of what’s displayed on the main page at any given time. If we are to suggest that the FAs are the best articles that the wiki has to offer, then this also gives us a way to surface our best content better. That's important for drawing people in.

Please note that this change will not necessarily remain in place with a possible main page revamp, but, even if this is just temporary, it’s a step in the right direction for content surfacing and variety.

Voting will last for one (1) week, until March 4, 2013, unless more or less time is required. All matters of the voting policy apply. Please be civil.

Support (1)

 * 1) As the proposer. Brandon Rhea (talk)  18:21, February 25, 2013 (UTC)